On August 15th, Arm China (hereinafter referred to as "Arm China") and leading semiconductor device supplier GigaDevice Semiconductor (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "GigaDevice") jointly announced that they will further strengthen their technical cooperation in embedded chip design and microcontroller product planning. They have signed a multi-year Arm Total Access technology authorization subscription agreement to seize the Arm MCU "core" opportunities together.

Xu Yatao, Executive Vice President of Sales and Business at Arm China, said: "As a leader in the domestic general-purpose MCU market and a long-term and important partner of Arm China, GigaDevice has engaged in extensive and fruitful cooperation with us for a long time. This time, GigaDevice's choice of the Arm Total Access solution and becoming the first domestic MCU manufacturer to sign the agreement undoubtedly sets a new benchmark for collaborative innovation among the domestic semiconductor industry chain. In the future, facing the wave of intelligent terminal innovation driven by edge AI, we look forward to continuing to work with GigaDevice to promote product innovation and ecosystem construction centered on MCUs, and achieve win-win development."

Li BaoKui, CTO and General Manager of the MCU Business Unit at GigaDevice, said: "GigaDevice has always relied on the world-leading Arm® technology ecosystem to establish a complete range of Arm general-purpose MCU products, and our technical strength is widely recognized, largely due to our in-depth cooperation with Arm China. We are very pleased to be the first domestic MCU chip manufacturer to sign the Arm Total Access technology authorization subscription agreement, deepening our cooperative relationship. The new Arm Total Access solution is highly compatible with GigaDevice's comprehensive planning for future product roadmaps. This is beneficial for us to integrate advantageous resources, continue to achieve commercial leadership and technological innovation, and accelerate the product launch process."

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Based on the mainstream Arm technology ecosystem, GigaDevice continues to expand its Arm MCU product map. Since launching the first general-purpose MCU series based on the Arm Cortex®-M core in 2013, GigaDevice has steadily developed into a leader in the high-performance general-purpose MCU field in China. Over the past decade, the company has continuously created and improved its product matrix based on the Arm architecture, providing a rich selection of more than 600 models across 51 series, with cumulative shipments exceeding 1.5 billion units. It has successfully built a complete general-purpose MCU ecosystem covering high, mid, and low-end markets centered around the Arm core, meeting a wide range of development and application needs such as high performance, low power consumption, strong real-time capabilities, wireless, and automotive specifications.

In the high-end market, the GD32H7 series of microcontrollers is the first in China to be based on the Arm Cortex-M7 core, breaking through the boundaries of traditional MCUs. It supports real-time control with a high frequency of up to 600MHz and large storage space, providing strong computational support for innovative applications such as complex calculations, multimedia technology, and edge computing. The GD32E5 series of microcontrollers uses the advanced Arm Cortex-M33 core, offering not only industry-leading processing power and power efficiency but also excellent connectivity features and more economical development costs, fully meeting the multifunctional integration and workload requirements of industrial applications such as digital energy, motor control, and mixed-signal processing.

In addition, GigaDevice is continuously advancing the development of several new MCU products based on the Arm Cortex-M core, including the GD32G5 series with the Cortex-M33 core and the GD32C2 series with the Cortex-M23 core. These new products are fully deployed in markets such as power and motors, entry-level consumer categories, adapting to diverse application development needs and cost considerations.

GigaDevice's in-depth cooperation with Arm China has not only successfully created several MCUs based on Arm technology but also jointly promoted embedded technology innovation. Currently, both parties are preparing to collaborate on products based on the Cortex-M52 core (previously known as "Xingchen" STAR-MC2 in the Chinese market) and the Cortex-R52 core. The Cortex-M52, using the Armv8.1-M architecture, is the smallest processor among all those supporting Arm Helium® technology, offering the best area and cost efficiency, and providing stronger AI capabilities for small, low-power IoT devices.

Signing the Arm Total Access solution fully meets the flexible "core" creation needs. Currently, the wave of large models is accelerating the intelligent evolution of the industry, with the rise of intelligent vehicles, AIoT, smartphones, PCs, data centers, and other fields, putting forward new requirements for the architecture, computing power, and security of underlying chips. The complexity of chip design continues to increase, the speed of product iteration and mass production is also accelerating, and the continuous emergence of emerging application markets undoubtedly brings new challenges to chip design companies in the new era.Faced with current challenges in technology, development, business, cost, and other aspects, GigaDevice's comprehensive product matrix built on the Arm architecture has become the key to maintaining its leadership in the MCU field. By adopting the Arm Total Access program, GigaDevice can fully and timely access the latest Arm technology and its various IP resources, advanced tools and models, professional support and training services, as well as rich software and physical design resources. This enables it to flexibly use and explore Arm IP solution combinations according to its own business needs and plans, to simultaneously advance multiple key projects, and to accelerate the design of various MCU chips in a one-stop manner, thereby solidifying its competitiveness in the wave of intelligent innovation.

Since its launch in the domestic market this year, the "Arm Technology Licensing Subscription" model has helped chip companies, including GigaDevice, to meet more complex and time-sensitive chip development needs with its flexible, convenient, and cost-effective product combinations and service support. In just a few months, more than 20 customers have been authorized. The agreement signed by both parties this time is the Arm Total Access program within this model.

As large models gradually penetrate to the edge and end sides, the process of intelligentization in embedded design is also accelerating. Arm technology, as the most widely used computing platform globally, will undoubtedly play an important role in this process. In the future, based on the rich and leading Arm technology platform, Arm's own research and business products, and the innovative "Arm Technology Licensing Subscription" model, Arm and GigaDevice will continue to carry out more diverse and close technical cooperation and ecological construction, jointly drawing the blueprint for Arm MCU innovation and "core" creation.