Malaysia is aiming to have its locally manufactured ARM chips enter the production stage by 2030. It also hopes to be able to use said chips in its own semiconductor supply chain in the same year.
Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir, Economy Minister, explained that the companies in Malaysia received the technologies and permission from ARM, with access provided through collaboration tokens. These tokens will require at least three years to develop chip designs before they can produce their first products. Hence, the 2030 target date.
One of the tokens was already provided to one of the companies last year, which means that its design should be completed by 2028. Akmal says that they offered letters to two local companies, Oppstar Technology Sdn Bhd and Alphaswift Industries Sdn Bhd. Both companies received access to Arm Compute Subsystem technology and the Arm Flexible Access programme to accelerate the development of integrated circuit designs, research and development, and semiconductor technology in Malaysia.
Akmal also says that the government is also placing emphasis on ensuring that chip manufacturing activities take place in Malaysia, in addition to setting requirements for the recruitment of highly skilled local engineers.
“So, the value that we are trying to create will be multiplied, not only through the company’s ability to produce its own chips, but also through these related linkages,” he said, adding that for the next round of token allocations, several companies are still being evaluated by a technical committee at the government level and by Arm Ltd.
(Source: The Edge)
