China - Semiconductor Manufacturing International (www.smics.com) and Brite Semiconductor (www.britesemi.com) jointly announced that their dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCore™ processor-based chip, adopting SMIC's 40nm LL (low-leakage) process technology, has achieved a clock rate of 1.3GHz in silicon tests.

The test chip incorporates a 32K I-Cache and a 32K D-Cache, memory compiler modules, ARM NEON™ technology, and ARM CoreSight™ debug and trace technology, as well as built-in SRAM, DMA, NOR flash, SDRAM, and VGA interfaces integrated through AMBA® AXI on the test chip. In addition to the high-speed standard cell library, the test chip also incorporates SMIC's customized high-speed memory and cell library for performance enhancement (SMIC Performance Enhancement Kit).

"Brite's rapid achievement demonstrates the stability of SMIC's 40nm LL process and our market leadership. Working closely with Brite and ARM allows us to provide our customers integrated platforms to accelerate time-to-market and mitigate the development risks of their advanced node designs. The milestone today once again demonstrates our dedication to provide industry-leading technology," said Chris Chi, Chief Business Officer of SMIC. "SMIC will continue to reinforce the development of our advanced technologies and provide highly competitive solutions for energy-efficient and high-performance consumer devices."

"ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core test chip performance has met our expectations, proving Brite Semiconductor has the solid technical foundation needed to meet industry demand. The next Cortex-A9 dual-core chip that will soon tape out will achieve higher performance. Brite Semiconductor is committed to providing our customers the most advanced platforms with integrated solutions. We believe that with the combined efforts of SMIC, ARM and our partners, we will surely achieve our goal to bring tremendous value to our customers," said Dr. Charlie Zhi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brite Semiconductor.

"This milestone from the ongoing collaboration between Brite, SMIC and ARM is a great example of how collaboration drives innovation in the development of core technology for the next generation of smart, connected devices," said Allen Wu, President, ARM China. "We value our partnership with Brite and SMIC, and are committed to providing mutual customers with the most advanced design and production platforms, based on ARM technology, that meet their power, performance and time-to-market needs," said Allen Wu, President of ARM China.