A leading semiconductor company is about to set up shop in Malaysia soon. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim revealed that United Kingdom-based ARM Holdings Plc is currently finalising plans to establish a base in Malaysia and the agreement is expected to be signed sometime next week.
The Prime Minister confirms this after an online discussion held yesterday with ARM CEO Rene Haas and SoftBank Group Corp CEO Masayoshi Son.
Anwar told reporters, “Insya-Allah, we will finalise the agreement next week, and it will be signed.”
ARM’s entry is part of Malaysia’s National Semiconductor Strategy
According to Malay Mail’s report, a source disclosed that senior leadership from ARM Holdings and the Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz were also part of the discussion. It is said that the agreement will be finalised to establish a base in Malaysia by the end of March.
The presence of ARM senior leadership appears to demonstrate confidence in Malaysia’s policies and ambition to be a regional hub for semiconductor design, manufacturing and innovation.
The agreement is part of Malaysia’s National Semiconductor Strategy (NSS). Under Phase 1, the NSS aims to attract at least RM500 billion of investment with Domestic Direct Investment (DDI) focusing on integrated circuit (IC) Design, advanced packaging and manufacturing equipment, and FDI focusing on Wafer Fabs and Manufacturing Equipment.
99% of smartphones are running on ARM-based chips
ARM is a semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England and it is currently 90% owned by SoftBank Group of Japan. ARM is known for designing power efficient chips which are crucial for mobile devices. While the company doesn’t manufacture their own chips, they license their designs to third party companies such as Qualcomm, Apple, Nvidia, MediaTek, Broadcom, Samsung and Huawei.
According to the company, 70% of the world’s population uses ARM-based products and over 300 billion ARM-based chips have been shipped to date. It added that 99% of smartphones are running on ARM-based processors and 50% of all chips with processors are ARM-based.
[ SOURCE, IMAGE SOURCE ]
