IET Presidential Address

Savoy Place, 5 Oct 06

Chips With Everything

Chips With Everything

Sir Robin Saxby
Emeritus Chairman ARM Holdings plc
Visiting Professor University of Liverpool
robin.saxby@arm.com
Slides available at www.theiet.org

A personal perspective for discussion

1

Flow

IET History
The Chip Industry
ARM case study

Challenges & lessons from above

Technology drivers

Convergence of hardware and software + technology / design / cost

challenges

2020 Vision

Technical & commercial leadership, globalisation, wealth creation, personal

satisfaction, influence from UK foundation
People stories as exemplars for younger engineers

biotech / microtech convergence era

IET Vision / Goals / Challenges

References
Conclusions
2

IET History

1818 Civil Engineers were first

aspiring British students saw Civil Engineering as utopia for fun &
wealth creation

- waterfront in Liverpool, Boston and Shanghai

1847 Mechanicals - Birmingham base
1871 Society of Telegraph Engineers
Electricity / Power, Radio, Electronics, Computing, Bio, Nano
Offer B Eng or B Sc equivalent before universities
Oxbridge slow to adopt engineering
Professionalism and professional development
Strong publishing revenue from 60s
Experts influencing government, informing the public
Personalities, difference of opinion normal
Mergers - latest one IIE
3

Microelectronics

SEMATECH

SEA

Cirrus
Logic

Chip Industry Foundations

Technology Development
Transistor

Dec 1947-Bell Labs

IC

1958 TI

Standard MOS

1967 Fairchild

70s - Waves of New Products

Microprocessors

Digital Signal Processors

DRAM

EPROM

Consequences of Moores Law

1B

Tr

t
1M

odu
r
P

a p
G
ity
v
i
t
c
1

y
100p

8,500
y
p
0
,80

Transistor/PM (K)

Transistors/Chip (M)

r
Mt
0
10

py

Gap
n
o
i
t
a
c
Verifi

ITRS99

Semiconductor Market Specialization

Several waves of semiconductor technology

Now in the middle of CMOS
CMOS has enabled MSI LSI VLSI SOC
Technical progress brings a basis for industry evolution
Miniaturization, reductions in costs, increases in complexity
Vertical integration gives way to horizontal specialization
Vertical
Suppliers

ASIC
Vendors

Fabless
Semis

System
Manufacturer

Design &
Distribution

IP Driven
Design
Design

Fully
Vertically
Integrated

IP
ASIC
Vendor

1970s

EDA

1980s

EDA

Manufacturing

Manufacturing

Fab Equipment

1990s

Today
7

System Chip Methodology

The design task is so large that it is not possible to design
the whole chip oneself

Components, from
independent suppliers are
integrated to produce the
so-called System-On-Chip.

The ARM RISC Processor

has become a Keystone SoC
Component; Fundamental to
interfacing the Hardware and
Software aspects of this
Digital World

1998
Mobile-Phone Processor.
80mm2, 0.6m

AMBA

ARM7TDMI

OAK DSP

PC approach - Scaling for Performance

80s & 90s industry growth and scaling in computing power

1982 - Intel 80286

1985 - Intel 80386

1989 - Intel 80386

134 thousand transistors

275 thousand transistors

1.2 million transistors

12MHz; 68.7 mm2

33MHz; 104 mm2

50MHz; 163 mm2

1993 - Intel Pentium

1997 - Intel PentiumII

1999 - Intel PentiumIII

2000 - Intel Pentium4

3.1 million transistors

7.5 million transistors

28 million transistors

42 million transistors

66MHz; 264 mm2

300MHz; 209 mm2

733MHz; 140 mm2

1.5GHz; 224 mm2

Scaling for Performance Consequence

80s & 90s industry growth and scaling in computing power

1982 - Intel 80286

134 thousand transistors
12MHz; 68.7 mm2

Performance at
expense of power
1985
80386
and- Intel
thermal
275
thousand transistors
challenges
33MHz ; 104 mm2

Move to multiprocessor

1989 - Intel 80386

1.2 million transistors
50MHz; 163 mm2

1993 - Intel Pentium

1997 - Intel PentiumII

1999 - Intel PentiumIII

2000 - Intel Pentium4

3.1 million transistors

7.5 million transistors

28 million transistors

42 million transistors

66MHz; 264 mm2

300MHz; 209 mm2

733MHz; 140 mm2

1.5GHz; 224 mm2

10

Financial Benefit of Scaling

The Virtuous Circle

DEMAND
INVESTMENT
Cost of 1MHz
Cost of 1 megabit storage
Cost of sending 1 trillion bits

COST
REDUCTION

1970
1980
$7,600.82
$103.40
$5,256.90
$614.40
$150,000.00 $129,166.67

1990
$25.47
$7.85
$90.42

2002
$0.17
$0.33
$0.12

Source: The New Paradigm Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas 1999 Report and 2002 Actuals

11

ARM From Humble Beginnings

1.5M cash from Apple

250K cash from VLSI
1.5M of IP & 12 engineers from Acorn
Proof of concept Acorn Archimedes
No patents, no independent customers, product not ready for
mass market
A barn, some energy, belief, experience
1 Partner VLSI Technology
1 OS Acorn RISCOS
No tools
Were going to be the global standard

12

Where are the Founders Now?

1990

2006

Robin Saxby
Jamie Urquhart
Mike Muller
Tudor Brown
Lee Smith
John Biggs
Harry Oldham
Dave Howard

- Founding CEO

- President IET

- Head VLSI design

- Venture Capital Partner / NED

- Leading systems architect

- ARM CTO & Director

- Lead Video & Memory Designer

- ARM COO & Director

- Lead Software Tools

- ARM Fellow

- VLSI Designer

- ARM EDA R & D

- Senior VLSI Designer

- ARM Fellow VLSI Design Mgr

- VLSI Designer

- ARM Consultant Engineer VLSI

Design

Pete Harrod

- Floating point guru

- ARM Group Leader Tech & People

IET Branch Chair

Harry Meekings - C Compiler Guru

- Architecture Guru
Al Thomas
Andy Merritt - Software Tools Engineer
- Algorithm Designer
David Seal

- Retired
- Died
- Voluntary worker
- ARM Senior Algorithm Designer

13

Volume drives success: 4.5Bn Units by 2010

69 partners shipping (out of 184) at end H2 06
4.5Bn / year

100sM

Q
206

Q
405

Q
205

Q
404

Q
204

Q
403

Q
203

Q
402

Q
202

Q
401

Q
201

Q
400

Q
200

600
550
500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0

Q
499

2Bn / year

2010

2006
14

Scaling the ARM way

mm2
100

ARM1:
3um; 50 mm2;
120mW at 6MHz
ARM6: 1.2um; 15MHz
ARM7DM: 0.8um; 25MHz

10

ARM7TDMI : 0.6um; 33MHz

1

0.1

800 x power
efficiency
500 x area
efficiency

0.35um; 47MHz
0.25um; 63MHz
180nm; 98MHz
130nm; 125MHz
90nm; 219MHz

ARM7TDMI:
65nm; 0.1 mm2;
~9mW at 350MHz

0
1986

1988 1990

1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

15

But ARM has done performance too

The 80s and 90s:

1985 ARM1

1988 ARM3

1994 ARM710

1999 ARM920T

50mm2;

12MHz; 1.2um

33MHz; 0.6um

140MHz; 0.25um

4MHz; 3um

The new millennium:

600x
Performance
4.5mm2 core

2001 ARM926EJ-S

2004 ARM1176JZ-S

2005 ARM MPCore (2 way) 2006 ARM Cortex A8

200MHz; 180nm

400MHz; 130nm

620MHz; 90nm

1GHz; 65nm

200 DMIPS

480 DMIPS

1,488 DMIPS

2,000 DMIPS

16

Community is as important as technology

ARM Developers Conf.,

Santa Clara
2200+ attendees
90 exhibitors & sponsors
130+ papers & panel sessions

Success through
broadest
Partner Support!

17

Increasing Strategic Value

Connected Community
Development Tools
Software IP

Processors

memory
memory

System Level IP:

Data Engines

SoC
SoC

Fabric
3D graphics
Physical IP
18

ARM Timeline

Founded Nov 1990

Profitable and cash generative since 93
Public April 98 NASDAQ and LSE
Many engineers now financially secure
Market cap 1.5B
approx 1500 people across the globe
100,000+ engineers working on ARM technology
25% sales on R & D
Global Semiconductor IP leader by 2.5X nearest competitor
Tiger best product award
Shareholder and Investor Awards
Eastern England Employee of the year
19

Methodology

Strategy 5 year horizon

USA, Europe, Japan, Other Asia in parallel Then China / India

As the company matures better systems and methods to manage

complexity whilst keeping pace

Operational Plan 1 year horizon

Tactical Plan 2-3 year horizon
Monthly measurement / reporting
Mean & lean - Tight cost control
Get leads globally Hire Presidents / Sales leaders globally Then
global design centres
Identify value points for long-term growth
Add high quality people to founding team
Develop people potential Long term planning Fast track, technical
ladder

20

Biggest ARM Challenges

Get out, get paid & get a credit line

Joint ventures dont work
Time to close first deals-potential cash crunch
Conflicts of interest with founding companies
Time and effort to close first deals
Partnership management
Shareholder fall-out prior to IPO
Continually evolving employee roles
Managing, internal, external, customer expectations
Shareholder expectation vs Creative Destruction Acquisition
Global dynamic of Governance standards
Share price volatility
21

University Business Collaboration

Quality and relevance of graduates

Technical competence versus business capability
Business know-how versus entrepreneurial flair
Buying it in versus breeding your own
Important aspect is cultural fit
Beware the frustrated academic aspiring business-man
Be realistic about time to money
Business is more customer pull than technology push
University, Business & Government worlds exist in
parallel universes on different time-lines
IET Axis Government / Academia / Industry Professionalism

22

Learning points

Strong competent teams can deliver amazing results

The team is only as good as its weakest link

consultants help

Vision, passion and hard work are key

Be realistic / pragmatic / honest re competition / listen

Different deliverables to different time lines plan,
plan adjust, iterate

Anticipate and satisfy explicit needs of real customers

Develop the market as well as the technology

Good salesmanship and communication are key skills
needed

Quality, professionalism, humour and complete

23

Technology driver - Content delivery

Fastest concert recording to digital download release
Time between recording of a live concert performance and

its release for digital download sale:

44 minutes and 39 seconds
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by Sir Paul
McCartney and U2
Universal Music Group International for Live 8 (July 2, 2005)

24

Technology driver - Miniaturisation

Digitisation allows increased miniaturisation, performance

and convenience

The best of
analogue

has become
smaller and
better

25

Technology driver - More software

High-performance devices
run large amounts of
complex software
128
All needs to be developed
and integrated into final
device

26

Technology driver - Embedded intelligence

1913 Model T Ford

No electronics

2006 Chrysler announce

40% of models will offer
iPod integration

Circa 1980 BMW 733i

Introduction of ABS

2015 - Pervasive
but hidden electronics

2005 BMW 7 Series

iDrive Control system

27

Technology driver - Changing lifestyles

Early Multi Format
Voice
Ringtones
Photos
Music
TV

Uni Format
Analogue
Broadcast delivery
Scattergun advertising

All digital
Content downloaded
Time shift broadcast
Unlimited storage
Delivery choices
Targeted advertising

In shop retail purchase

Media plays on any device

1880

1900

True Multi Format

1926

1990

2000

2010

28

Future Outlook - Healthcare & fitness

Largest opportunity to add value

Healthcare systems under extreme stress despite $3T global spend

Improvements needed:
In efficiency, reliability, privacy, quality of life

Product opportunities:
Disease prevention, monitoring, therapy, services, IT

Emergence and growth of telemedicine

Removes distance between provider and patient
Need for connectivity increases hardware
and software integration challenges

29

2020: On the body

Active Clothing

Mini Logger
Temp monitor
Chilli Heated Clothing

Active Joint Brace

wins MIT $50K

Cochlear Ear

Replacement Eye
30

2020: Products for the Infirmed

Biometrics - time to visit the doctor again

Controls Parkinsons
Disease

Implanted automatic drug delivery

Insulin Delivery

Heart monitoring

Medtronic
Replacement Pancreas

3D freescan image

31

2020: Products for Kids

Active clothing / skin? that changes

colour / tone for mood?
In his latest column for Business 2.0, "Wearable Tech,"
Rafe Needleman tells us that clothes that can change
colors electronically are soon coming to our closets.

Allow online
searching by
thought

Holographic projection conference

calling with friends

DNA
Screen
On offer in a
Cambridge
shop

32

2020: Products for Kids

Five-sense Virtual Reality gaming and experiences

33

Ultimate Product?
Heated Seat
2 Heated Water Bidet Streams

Electronic Bidet
The Worlds Best
Toilet Seat!

Home medical advisor,

Speech, patient history,
Take pills with patient
monitoring

Electronically Temperature Controlled

Electronic Water Pressure Control
Automatic Shut-off

Keizo Mura Skiing on his 100th Birthday

Salt Lake City
34

Conclusion

Successful tech industry is built on solid

foundations and has exciting times ahead
Always new challenges to be overcome
Old methods do not scale
Accelerated move to global open standards,
collaboration & partnership
Improving system design methods to enable
management of increased complexity
Software becomes an ever more critical
part of the solution
Some new winners
Only the innovative survive
35

An IET Vision

An Institution for the 21st Century

Practise professionalism everywhere
Knowledge Networks Web & real Collaboration & partnership
IET.tv, Flipside, INSPEC and the web as resources for great stuff
Inform the public Help raise the SET profile
Inspire and encourage the young to take up SET careers
Enable member career development and professionalism
Facilities Services, web, meeting, coffee, real networking
Benevolent Fund
Greater global relevance
Partnership for global reach and relevance
Vision in detail for local delivery
Use technology for innovative delivery & communication to
world audience
36

Development of unified vision

Strategy, BoT, Council, Presidential teamwork and

succession
Partnership - other Institutions, governments, industry,
academia
Quality plan
Lead by example, development of strategy, team-work calendar
Greater branch activity with focused appeal and targeting
- includes visits, technician development
Web & IET.tv Development
Underpinned by Publishing and Events
- includes long term vision of information sourcing

37

References

A History of The institution of Electrical Engineers 1871-1981

WJ Reader
The Victorian Internet & The Mechanical Turk Tom
Standage
Microsoft Secrets Michael A Cusumano & Richard W Selby
Total Global Strategy George S Yip
The Age of Spiritual Machines Ray Kurzweil
The Private Life of The Brain Susan Greenfield
Competing For The Future Gary Hamel & CK Prahalad
Creative Destruction Richard Foster & Sarah Kaplan
The World Is Flat Thomas L Friedman
ITRS Roadmap for Semiconductors
38

Q&A
www.theiet.org

39