IBM to License ARM Designs for Networking, Communications Chips

ARM officials are seeing growing interest in their low-power SoC designs for use in networking and communications systems.

IBM is licensing a range of ARM Cortex processor designs to build custom chips for clients for wired and wireless networking systems.

IBM officials on Oct. 24 said the 32-bit low-power ARM-based chips will be used for such systems as networking routers and switches, as well as cellular base stations. The chips include ARM's Cortex-A15, Cortex-A12, Cortex-A7 and Cortex-M4, as well as the ARM Mali-450 graphics chip. ARM's low-power designs are best known for powering the bulk of smartphones and tablets on the market today. ARM creates the designs, which it then licenses to the likes of Samsung, Qualcomm and Nvidia, which add their own technologies and then make and sell them.