November 5, 2012, Seoul - STMicroelectronics (hereinafter ST), a global semiconductor company serving diverse electronic device application fields, announced that it is a major partner leading the deployment of the Cortex-A57 processor, a solution based on ARM's recently announced 64-bit ARMv8 architecture.

From the STM32 product family, a representative of 32-bit ARM Cortex-based MCUs, to the most advanced SoC customized solutions, ST has incorporated 32-bit ARM cores across a diverse product portfolio. Building on this extensive experience, ST will actively leverage the superior performance, expanded address space, and low power consumption of the 64-bit Cortex-A57 processor to develop next-generation computing-intensive SoCs.

Gian Luca Bertino, Executive Vice President and head of the Digital Convergence Group at ST, stated, "ST has achieved outstanding results in combining a broad IP portfolio[1], application expertise, and cutting-edge manufacturing technology with ARM's technology to deliver optimized solutions to customers. The Cortex-A50 product family will not only strengthen ST's integrated platform roadmap IP portfolio, but also improve performance per watt in ASICs for networking and data center infrastructure. Moreover, as an early collaboration partner of ARM, ST will be able to bring Cortex A50 processor-based products to market faster than anyone else."

ST has an aggressive roadmap to apply the Cortex-A57 processor to multicore SoC solutions for high-end applications where high computing performance and low power consumption are critical. The low power consumption of the ARM Cortex-A57 core will enable ST to implement higher levels of integration and allow system integrators to simplify cooling systems for high-performance network infrastructure and data center products. The Cortex-A50 family processors will form the foundation for the next generation of ST's Unified Processing Platform being developed for digital convergence applications.

Tom Cronk, Head of ARM's Processor Division, said, "Consumers want to stay seamlessly connected to their personal data and content, using it easily and freely. To achieve this, partners like ARM and ST must drive innovation opening a new era of mobile computing and evolution in the networking and server markets." He added, "The combination of ST's SoC solution experience and the innovative technology provided by the Cortex-A57 processor will make this possible. We expect high-performance, low-power ARMv8 architecture to be incorporated into many new ST products, and these products will serve as the backbone of consumer devices and enterprise infrastructure."

Committed to environmental sustainability, ST continuously strives to improve power efficiency across all its products, from basic power components to the most complex ASICs used in internet infrastructure applications. For example, it was estimated that server farms accounted for 1.3% of total global electricity consumption in 2010[2]. As cloud computing usage continues to grow globally for personal and enterprise communications and data storage, the improved power efficiency of modern SoCs using 64-bit architecture will contribute to creating a more sustainable world.