Korean Ministry of SMEs and Startups selects Arm Flexible Access to support local startup companies

Seoul, South Korea – April 22, 2020 -- Arm today announced an agreement with the Korean Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) to initiate an investment program to support Korean startup businesses. Arm Flexible Access has been selected by MSS to encourage Korean silicon startups to design their own system on chip (SoC) with more freedom and flexibility. As part of a multi-year agreement, Arm will provide Arm Flexible Access to MSS, and MSS will provide selected startups with access to Arm intellectual property (IP).

Arm Flexible Access is an engagement model enabling SoC design teams to initiate projects before they license IP and pay only for what they use at production. Through Arm Flexible Access, businesses will enable their design teams with more freedom to experiment, innovate and design. Launched in July 2019, the new engagement model is already empowering Arm partners worldwide with an entirely new way of accessing Arm’s industry-leading chip technologies quickly and easily. Since its launch, partners have been signing up for Arm Flexible Access at a rate of approximately one per week.

The investment program will a offer Arm Flexible Access to 10 selected startups each year. This will enable them to undertake full projects with access to a wide range of Arm IP including Cortex CPUs, Mali GPUs, System IP, Security IP, Physical IP, and software tools and models. Arm will also provide technical support to the startups.

“Today’s startups will be tomorrow’s leading technology companies,” said SW Hwang, country manager of Arm Korea. “Huge technology innovation is happening within silicon startups in areas including AI at the edge, autonomous vehicles and IoT, and we’re excited to work with MSS to enable Korean startups with an accelerated route to success.”

Through the project, Arm has become the first non-Korean origin multinational company to be selected as a member of MSS’ Inclusive Company Program. MSS grants the title to only selected companies which have made a significant contribution to small- and mid-sized enterprises in Korea.

“This first global agreement for mutually beneficial cooperation across borders will greatly help domestic fabless innovation and growth,” said Park Young-sun, the Minister of SMEs and Startups. “We hope for various collaborations that can help the global semiconductor ecosystem through this agreement.”

Read more about the Arm Flexible Access here.

About Arm

Arm technology is at the heart of a computing and data revolution that is transforming the way people live and businesses operate. Our advanced, energy-efficient processor designs have enabled intelligent computing in more than 160 billion chips and our technologies now securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. In combination with our IoT device, connectivity and data management platform, we are also enabling customers with powerful and actionable business insights that are generating new value from their connected devices and data. Together with 1,000+ technology partners we are at the forefront of designing, securing and managing all areas of compute from the chip to the cloud.