Arm Hires Amazon's AI Chip Expert to Boost In-House Chip Development

Arm hires Amazon's AI chip developer, ostensibly to help create its own processors -- Rami Sinno returns to the company, boasts Trainium and Inferentia on resume

This is the latest move in Arm's chip designer hiring spree that's been ongoing for the past year. British semiconductor and chip design firm Arm Holdings has hired Amazon's director of engineering in its Amazon Web Services division to work on developing its own complete processors, according to Reuters. Rami Sinno headed the team that developed Amazon's own AI processors, Trainium and Inferentia, but will be returning to the fold with this move, having previously worked as VP of engineering at ARM between 2014 and 2019. Arm's chip designs are nearly ubiquitous in the mobile world, featured in most smartphones and a wide range of tablets and laptops. Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips are based on ARM architecture, as are Apple's A and M-series system-on-chip designs, and Arm is making major inroads in the data center space. It's even starting to make a name for itself in the gaming scene, too. But Arm doesn't typically build its own processors. That's something it has reportedly been looking to change over the past few years. We first heard rumors that it was looking to build its own AI hardware in early 2024, and that it allegedly already had orders for some of its as-yet-unannounced chips in February this year. It's not clear how far along in the development process Arm is with its own chips, but Sinno brings significant experience to the company, having been a key component in Amazon's own AI hardware endeavours. Sinno joins the likes of experienced Intel and Qualcomm engineer Steve Halter, as well as HP Enterprise alumnus Nicolas Dube. Although an exceedingly profitable company already, enough that Nvidia reportedly tried to buy it for $40 billion in 2020, that all came from royalties for its chip designs. Arm is looking to branch into an entirely new venture with the development of its own hardware. CEO Rene Haas said in July that Arm was considering developing its own chiplets that can be bundled together in a larger package, as well as complete (perhaps monolithic) chip designs. Sinno was brought in early for Amazon's own AI hardware development, building the architecture from the ground up, reportedly using Amazon's standard method of development: starting at the customer's desires and working backwards to develop what they need. At that time, it was high compute, low power chips, and though the market is more contested and the industry much further along now than it was then, Arm's eventual hardware will need to offer much the same. But it clearly believes it can do it. Earlier this year, Arm announced the aggressive and confident plan that it would capture as much as 50% of the data center CPU market by the end of 2025. That will come from new AI data centers, and with companies like Nvidia building 100 AI factories, there's no shortage of demand.

Top AWS chip engineer reportedly defects to Arm

Rami Sinno led Trainium and Inferentia development at Amazon British chip designer Arm Holdings has reportedly recruited one of Amazon Web Services' top chip engineers. Rami Sinno ran engineering teams at Arm before joining Amazon's Annapurna Labs team in 2019, where he oversaw the development of the cloud giant's Trainium and Inferentia chips. According to a Reuters report citing persons familiar with the matter, Sinno will return to Arm, to support the company's pivot from IP design house to silicon slinger. Sinno has experience with both physical silicon and machine learning infrastructure, but it remains unclear whether his efforts at Arm will involve dedicated AI accelerators like Trainium and Inferentia or chip house's bread and butter CPUs. Arm declined to comment. El Reg also reached out to Sinno for comment, but had not heard back at the time of publication. Historically Arm hasn't built its own chips, preferring instead to license processor designs that are used in chips created by Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia, among many others. Alongside CPU cores, the company also designs GPUs and neural processing units for use in edge and smartphone applications. And while Arm has yet to challenge the likes of AMD and Nvidia in the datacenter GPU arena, the company is no stranger to AI infrastructure. Its Neoverse V2 core architecture is at the heart of every Nvidia GB200 and GB300 NVL72 rack system sold today, and the GPU giant's upcoming Vera CPUs will also share an Arm foundation. However, it seems Arm's ambitions may not be limited to architectural licenses or CPU cores. Last month, Arm CEO Rene Haas said the company was exploring the possibility of implementing its designs in silicon, either in a chiplet form factor or full blown CPU package. "We are continuing to explore the possibility of moving beyond our current platform into additional Compute Subsystems, chiplets, and potentially full-end solutions," Haas said during the company's Q1 earnings call last month. Arm has been moving toward selling more complete chip designs for several years now with its Compute Subsystems (CSS), which include everything necessary for a company to bring a chip to market - with or without additional customization. Microsoft's Cobalt CPUs, for example, are said to be based on these shake-and-bake designs. Chiplets would be a natural progression for Arm whose customers are already in the habit of using the chip designers' off-the-shelf Cortex and Neoverse cores, while still providing a degree of flexibility to design for specific I/O, memory, and packaging requirements. More complete CPU and SoC packages would, however, risk putting Arm in direct competition with its largest customers which could backfire, driving some to alternative compute architectures like RISC-V. ®

Exclusive: Arm hires Amazon AI exec to boost plans to build its own chips

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Arm Holdings has hired Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab artificial intelligence chip director Rami Sinno to bolster its plans to develop its own complete chips, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. Sinno was responsible for helping to develop Amazon's homegrown AI chips called Trainium and Inferentia that are designed to help build and run large AI applications. Until now, Arm has not built its own chips. Instead, it designs the core architecture and instruction set for processors that it sells to customers. Chip designers like Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab use Arm technology in their chips. In July, Arm disclosed plans to invest a portion of its profit into building its own chips and other components. CEO Rene Haas discussed the possibility of moving beyond designs and building chiplets - smaller, function-specific versions of a chip that are stitched together - and complete systems. The company, which is majority-owned by the SoftBank Group (9984.T), opens new tab, collects royalty payments on the chips its customers sell. Arm-based devices power nearly every smartphone in the world and server chips based on its intellectual property have made significant inroads in the data center market long dominated by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab and Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab. As part of a broad plan to increase its business, Arm has sought to expand beyond supplying crucial chip intellectual property to building its own complete designs. Reuters first reported on the company's plans outlined in sealed exhibits from a December trial, and its effort to hire executives from rivals in February. In recent years, Arm has sought to bolster its teams focused on building complete chips and systems. The company has hired Nicolas Dube, an executive from HPE (HPE.N), opens new tab with large-scale systems design experience, and Steve Halter, a chip engineer from Intel and Qualcomm (QCOM.O), opens new tab, as part of the effort, the person familiar with the matter said. Sinno's effort at Amazon was part of the company's effort to design chips that would be cheaper and offer superior performance to Nvidia's graphics processors used for AI work. Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence Max A. Cherney Thomson Reuters Max A. Cherney is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco, where he reports on the semiconductor industry and artificial intelligence. He joined Reuters in 2023 and has previously worked for Barron's magazine and its sister publication, MarketWatch. Cherney graduated from Trent University with a degree in history.

Exclusive: Arm hires Amazon AI chip director to aid in-house effort

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Arm Holdings has hired former Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab artificial intelligence chip director Rami Sinno to bolster its plans to develop its own complete chips, according to a person familiar with the matter. Sinno was responsible for helping to develop Amazon's homegrown AI chips called Tranium and Inferentia that are designed to help build and run large AI applications. Arm has sought to expand its ambitions from a supplier of crucial chip intellectual property to build its own complete designs. Reuters first reported on the company's plans outlined in sealed exhibits from a December trial, and its effort to hire executives from rivals in February. Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence Max A. Cherney Thomson Reuters Max A. Cherney is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco, where he reports on the semiconductor industry and artificial intelligence. He joined Reuters in 2023 and has previously worked for Barron's magazine and its sister publication, MarketWatch. Cherney graduated from Trent University with a degree in history.

Reuters: Arm hires Amazon AI chip exec for in-house chipmaking

Arm has reportedly been set on building its own chips for a while now, with Amazon's Rami Sinno being the latest in a series of strategic recruitment to boost this ambition. Chip design company Arm has reportedly hired Amazon's artificial intelligence (AI) chip director Rami Sinno to boost its strategy to build its own chips, a source told Reuters yesterday (18 August). Sinno, in his role as director of engineering at Amazon-owned Annapurna Labs, played a large part in the development of Amazon's AI chips Trainium and Inferentia. For Sinno, this reported move marks a return to a familiar company. Prior to joining Amazon's homegrown chip operation, Sinno held leadership positions in Arm's engineering team for more than five years until 2019. Up until now, UK company Arm - which is majority owned by SoftBank - has primarily designed the core architecture of semiconductor processors and instruction set for processors - licensed by chip giants the likes of Apple and Nvidia - rather than build its own chips. However, the company has had its sights set on its own in-house manufacturing for a while now, with reports indicating as much as far back as January. The following February, sources told Reuters that the company had begun hiring from its own customers and competing with them for deals as part of its plan to sell its own chips. While just last month, CEO Rene Haas outlined the company's ambition to manufacture its own chiplets - smaller, modular units that can be combined to create a more complex system-on-chip circuit. The reported recruitment of Sinno is not the first time Arm has hired personnel to boost its own chipmaking capabilities. In June 2024, the company hired Nicolas Dube, a former Hewlett Packard Enterprise executive with large-scale systems design experience, while in 2023, Arm added chip engineer and Qualcomm and Intel alum Steve Halter to its team. In other recent Arm news, the company opened a new "state-of-the-art" facility in Galway near the end of June - a move which was supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland. Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment Peter Burke, TD said the new facility - which the company said will be home to innovative advancements in semiconductor tech - was "a strong endorsement of Ireland's position as a global hub for research, innovation and advanced semiconductor technologies". The new facility was opened just a month after the Irish Government revealed its new national semiconductor strategy, Silicon Island. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Arm hires Amazon AI exec to boost plans to build its own chips - The Economic Times

Arm Holdings has hired Amazon AI chip director Rami Sinno to support its shift towards building complete chips. Known for Amazon's Trainium and Inferentia, Sinno joins Arm's growing team of industry veterans. The move marks a strategic shift as Arm aims to expand beyond chip designs into full systems and chiplets.Arm Holdings has hired Amazon.com artificial intelligence chip director Rami Sinno to bolster its plans to develop its own complete chips, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. Sinno was responsible for helping to develop Amazon's homegrown AI chips called Trainium and Inferentia that are designed to help build and run large AI applications. Until now, Arm has not built its own chips. Instead, it designs the core architecture and instruction set for processors that it sells to customers. Chip designers like Apple and Nvidia use Arm technology in their chips. In July, Arm disclosed plans to invest a portion of its profit into building its own chips and other components. CEO Rene Haas discussed the possibility of moving beyond designs and building chiplets - smaller, function-specific versions of a chip that are stitched together - and complete systems. The company, which is majority-owned by the SoftBank Group , collects royalty payments on the chips its customers sell. Arm-based devices power nearly every smartphone in the world and server chips based on its intellectual property have made significant inroads in the data center market long dominated by Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. As part of a broad plan to increase its business, Arm has sought to expand beyond supplying crucial chip intellectual property to building its own complete designs. Reuters first reported on the company's plans outlined in sealed exhibits from a December trial, and its effort to hire executives from rivals in February. In recent years, Arm has sought to bolster its teams focused on building complete chips and systems. The company has hired Nicolas Dube, an executive from HPE with large-scale systems design experience, and Steve Halter, a chip engineer from Intel and Qualcomm, as part of the effort, the person familiar with the matter said. Sinno's effort at Amazon was part of the company's effort to design chips that would be cheaper and offer superior performance to Nvidia's graphics processors used for AI work.

ARM's In-House AI Chip Pursuit Sees a Massive Breakthrough as the Firm Hires Amazon's AI Chip Expert Responsible for Highly-Capable Trainium CPUs

ARM's ambitions for an in-house AI chip have now seen a massive boost, as the company hires Amazon's AI chip director, who was responsible for high-end ASICs. The chip IP firm ARM is looking to make a strategic pivot in its business, moving into the CPU markets as the company looks to capitalize on the massive demand coming from the AI industry. We recently reported on how ARM's CEO Rene Haas revealed that the company had been exploring 'full-end' solutions, in order to reduce reliance on the IP business as its revenue driver. Now, Reuters reports that the firm has hired Rami Sinno, Amazon's AI chip director, signaling ARM's intentions to dominate the CPU market. Interestingly, ARM's core business has been supplying IPs to customers like NVIDIA and ARM for several years, so a shift towards developing its own solution might be risky. However, the firm has seen massive adoption of its architecture, particularly in the datacenter segment, with more than 50% market share driven by NVIDIA. ARM's decision to expand its business by manufacturing CPU solutions certainly has a surprising element, but the company can nail off the implementation given that it has appropriate revenue sources. Speaking of revenue, ARM is also backed by the SoftBank Group, whose CEO is known to invest billions in risky projects; hence, the prospect of homegrown processors isn't far-fetched. More importantly, ARM's entry into the datacenter CPU segment will be met by fierce competition from the likes of Intel and AMD, who have dominated the business for several years now, but one advantage the firm has over others is its collaboration with NVIDIA through Grace CPUs. Amazon's Rami Sinno is known to have played a pivotal role in developing the firm's in-house CPUs, such as Trainium and Inferentia models. These models are known for their exceptional performance and are considered a viable alternative to NVIDIA. Now that ARM has the resources onboard for a full-scale solution, we should expect the debut of a processor very soon, which will be a decisive product for the company.

Arm Taps Amazon AI Veteran To Drive In-House Chip Push, Challenge Nvidia And AMD: Report - Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

In a strategic move, Arm Holdings ARM has recruited Rami Sinno, a former Amazon.com Inc AMZN artificial intelligence (AI) chip director, to enhance its in-house chip development plans. Trending Investment OpportunitiesAdvertisementArrivedBuy shares of homes and vacation rentals for as little as $100. Get StartedInteractive BrokersTrade global markets with low costs and pro-level tools at Interactive Brokers.Get StartedRangeRange delivers AI-powered wealth management at a fraction of the cost. Get StartedRocket HELOCGet a HELOC with mid-600s credit -- borrow and repay on repeat. Get StartedPacasoJoin 10,000+ investors betting on Pacaso's global expansion at $2.90 per share.Get StartedWorthy BondsEarn 7% fixed interest with Worthy Bonds -- start investing with just $10.Get StartedNinjaTraderNinjaTrader gives you futures access with low day-trading margins.Get StartedIRA FinancialInvest your IRA or 401(k) in real estate, crypto, and more with IRA Financial. Get StartedAcornsGrow wealth effortlessly -- Acorns invests your spare change automatically. Get StartedSmartAssetFind a vetted financial advisor near you in minutes with SmartAsset's free tool. Get StartedAmazon AI Chip Veteran Joins Arm For New Chip Venture Sinno, who played a key role in the development of Amazon's AI chips, will now bring his expertise to Arm Holdings, Reuters reported. His appointment is a significant step for Arm Holdings as it aims to create its own complete chips, a new venture for the company. Check out the current price of ARM stock here. Arm Holdings, best known for designing processor architectures and instruction sets, recently announced plans to reinvest part of its profits into developing its own chips and components. The initiative marks a strategic shift aimed at expanding the company's role beyond providing chip intellectual property. As the majority-owned company of SoftBank Group SFTBY, Arm Holdings collects royalties on the chips sold by its customers. The company's chips power nearly every smartphone globally and have made significant inroads in the data center market, challenging the dominance of Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD and Intel Corporation INTC. SEE ALSO: Jeff Bezos Once Asked Warren Buffett Why People Don't Just Copy His 'Simple' Investment Strategy -- He Said 'Because No One Wants To Get Rich Slow' - Benzinga Arm Explores Chiplets, Moves Beyond Licensing Model Arm Holdings' decision to hire Sinno and its plans to develop its own chips come at a time when the company is facing margin concerns. Despite a 12% year-over-year increase in revenue, the chip designer's latest quarterly results fell short of analyst estimates, leading to a revision in ratings by Wall Street analysts. However, Arm Holdings is actively exploring a strategic shift towards developing "full-end solutions" and chiplets, potentially moving beyond its traditional intellectual property (IP) licensing model. This move could potentially increase competition for Nvidia NVDA. The hiring of Sinno is a part of Arm's broader strategy to transition from providing essential chip intellectual property to developing its own full-fledged designs. This follows the company's recent recruitment of executives from competitors, including Nicolas Dube from HPE HPE and Steve Halter from Intel and Qualcomm QCOM. Benzinga's Edge Rankings place Arm in the 36th percentile for momentum and the 6th percentile for value, reflecting its weak performance. Check the detailed report here. READ MORE: Billionaire Fund Manager Doubles Down on Nvidia and Key AI Stack Play Image via Shutterstock Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. AMDAdvanced Micro Devices Inc$175.19-0.54%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum86.79Growth93.27Quality75.91Value11.85Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewAMZNAmazon.com Inc$230.96-0.23%ARMARM Holdings PLC$141.100.03%HPEHewlett Packard Enterprise Co$21.640.05%INTCIntel Corp$25.086.00%NVDANVIDIA Corp$182.300.16%QCOMQualcomm Inc$158.90-%SFTBYSoftBank Group CorpNot Available-%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Exclusive-Arm hires Amazon AI exec to boost plans to build its own chips

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Arm Holdings has hired Amazon.com artificial intelligence chip director Rami Sinno to bolster its plans to develop its own complete chips, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. Sinno was responsible for helping to develop Amazon's homegrown AI chips called Trainium and Inferentia that are designed to help build and run large AI applications. Until now, Arm has not built its own chips. Instead, it designs the core architecture and instruction set for processors that it sells to customers. Chip designers like Apple and Nvidia use Arm technology in their chips. In July, Arm disclosed plans to invest a portion of its profit into building its own chips and other components. CEO Rene Haas discussed the possibility of moving beyond designs and building chiplets - smaller, function-specific versions of a chip that are stitched together - and complete systems. The company, which is majority-owned by the SoftBank Group, collects royalty payments on the chips its customers sell. Arm-based devices power nearly every smartphone in the world and server chips based on its intellectual property have made significant inroads in the data center market long dominated by Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. As part of a broad plan to increase its business, Arm has sought to expand beyond supplying crucial chip intellectual property to building its own complete designs. Reuters first reported on the company's plans outlined in sealed exhibits from a December trial, and its effort to hire executives from rivals in February. In recent years, Arm has sought to bolster its teams focused on building complete chips and systems. The company has hired Nicolas Dube, an executive from HPE with large-scale systems design experience, and Steve Halter, a chip engineer from Intel and Qualcomm, as part of the effort, the person familiar with the matter said. Sinno's effort at Amazon was part of the company's effort to design chips that would be cheaper and offer superior performance to Nvidia's graphics processors used for AI work. (Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis)