Chipmaker Arm to make its own semiconductor – FT By Reuters

(Reuters) – British chipmaker Arm Ltd is building its own semiconductor to showcase the capabilities of its products, as it seeks to attract new customers and fuel growth following its Initial Public Offering (IPO) later this year, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Arm will team up with manufacturing partners to develop the new semiconductor, FT said, citing people briefed on the move, adding that the company has built a new “solutions engineering” team that will lead the development of these prototype chips for mobile devices, laptops and other electronics.

The SoftBank Group Corp-backed company’s newest chip, on which it started work in the past six months, is “more advanced” than ever before, FT said, citing industry executives.

The chip designer has no plans to sell or license the product and is only working on a prototype, FT said.

Arm is a major supplier of intellectual property to many chip companies, especially in mobile phones and has partnerships with major chip contract manufacturers.

Earlier this month, Intel Corp (NASDAQ:) said it will work with Arm to ensure that mobile phone chips and other products that use Arm’s technology can be made in Intel’s factories.

Arm did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.