ARM last year at COMPUTEX announced that in the Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park it would establish the world’s fourth and Asia’s first CPU design center. After a year of recruitment and preparation, the opening ceremony was held. In the future, chips with ARM architecture will not only be manufactured in Taiwan, but they will also be designed in Taiwan. Hence, “Design in Taiwan” will be found around the world in all kinds of embedded applications.

ARM’s Hsinchu office had 20 employees last year, and it currently has a research and development staff of 43 employees. At the end of the year this number will be increased to between 80 and 100 employees. In addition to the CPU design team, the staff also includes a team that does wafer OEM, EDA and silicon intellectual property closely with major clients as well as a team which focuses on graphics processor support for Mali clients in the Asia-Pacific region.

Allen Wu, Global Vice President and President of Greater China of ARM stated that ARM will continue to invest in Taiwan and the number of employees will increase by at least 7 times, and together with its Taiwanese partners they will collaborate to increase chip shipments by at least 9 times. Taiwan possesses a complete supply chain for the semiconductor industry and high-quality local research and development talent. Therefore, Taiwan was chosen as the ideal location to set up Asia’s first CPU design center.

ARM Processor Division General Director James McNiven also emphasized that the Asian market occupies 50.3% of ARM’s total global turnover, which is the biggest in the world. As a result, establishing the CPU design center in Taiwan, which is an environment with a complete semiconductor supply chain, will be the key to ARM’s future success.

Vice President of the Executive Yuan Chang San-cheng stated that that Taiwan’s government warmly welcomes ARM to establish Asia’s first CPU design center in Taiwan. This is sure to not only improve Taiwan’s technology industry chains and human resources, but also serve as an incubator to promote advanced technology.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs Vice-Minister Yang Wei-fu pointed out that today ARM Hsinchu established the CPU design center. Not only is this an important day for Taiwan’s technology industry but also an important milestone for the entire Asia-Pacific technology industry. The Ministry of Economic Affairs will help ARM to put down roots in Taiwan, and hopefully it will be able to develop well in Taiwan.

(TR/Phil Sweeney)