The ARM architecture (previously, the Advanced RISC Machine, and prior to that Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding.... RISC processor
Central processing unit
A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage.... architecture developed by ARM Limited that is widely used in embedded
Embedded system
An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, often with real-time computing constraints.... designs. Because of their power saving features, ARM CPU
Central processing unit
A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage.... s are dominant in the mobile electronics market, where low power consumption is a critical design goal. As of 2007, about 98 percent of the more than a billion mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites.... s sold each year use at least one ARM CPU.
Today, the ARM family accounts for approximately 75% of all embedded 32-bit RISC CPUs.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'ARM architecture'
Start a new discussion about 'ARM architecture'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum
Encyclopedia
The ARM architecture (previously, the Advanced RISC Machine, and prior to that Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding.... RISC processor
Central processing unit
A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage.... architecture developed by ARM Limited that is widely used in embedded
Embedded system
An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions, often with real-time computing constraints.... designs. Because of their power saving features, ARM CPU
Central processing unit
A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage.... s are dominant in the mobile electronics market, where low power consumption is a critical design goal. As of 2007, about 98 percent of the more than a billion mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites.... s sold each year use at least one ARM CPU.
Today, the ARM family accounts for approximately 75% of all embedded 32-bit RISC CPUs. ARM CPUs are found in most corners of consumer electronics, from portable devices (PDAs
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant is a handheld computer, also known as a palmtop computer. Newer PDAs also have both color screens and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones, , web browsers, or portable media players.... , mobile phones, iPods and other digital media and music players, handheld gaming units, and calculator
Calculator
A calculator is a device for performing mathematical calculations, distinguished from a computer by having a limited problem solving ability and an interface optimized for interactive calculation rather than programming.... s) to computer peripherals (hard drives, desktop router
Router
A router is a Computer network device whose software and hardware are usually tailored to the tasks of routing and forwarding information. For example, on the Internet, information is directed to various paths by routers.... s). However, since the decline of ARM Ltd's former parent company Acorn Computers
Acorn Computers
Acorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the United Kingdom.... , it no longer designs chips oriented towards desktop or main processor functions, and has never been used in a supercomputer or cluster. Prominent branches in this family include Marvell
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell is an USA producer of storage, Telecommunications and consumer semiconductor products. Their products can be found in a range of applications:... 's (formerly Intel's) XScale and the Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments , better known in the electronics industry as TI, is an United States company based in Dallas, Texas, Texas, United States, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology.... OMAP series.
History
The ARM design was started in 1983 as a development project at Acorn Computers Ltd
Acorn Computers
Acorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the United Kingdom.... to build a compact RISC CPU. Led by Sophie Wilson
Sophie Wilson
Sophie Wilson, formerly Roger Wilson, is a United Kingdom computer scientist. She was educated at Cambridge University. In 1978, she designed the Acorn System 1, the first of a long line of computers sold by Acorn Computers Ltd.... and Steve Furber
Steve Furber
Professor Stephen Byram Furber CBE, Fellow of the Royal Society, FREng is the International Computers Limited Professor of Computer Engineering at the Manchester University School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester but is probably best known for his work at Acorn Computers Ltd where he was one of the designers of the BBC Mic... , a key design goal was achieving low-latency input/output (interrupt) handling like the MOS Technology 6502
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured central processing unit on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of competing designs from larger companies such... used in Acorn
Acorn Computers
Acorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the United Kingdom.... 's existing computer designs. The 6502's memory access architecture allowed developers to produce fast machines without the use of costly direct memory access hardware. The team completed development samples called ARM1 by April 1985, and the first "real" production systems as ARM2 the following year.
The ARM2 featured a 32-bit data bus, a 26-bit (64 Mbyte
Megabyte
Megabyte is a SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for digital information computer storage or transmission and is equal to 106 bytes.... ) address space
Address space
In computing, an address space defines a range of discrete addresses, each of which may correspond to a physical or virtual memory register, a Node , peripheral device, disk sector or other logical or physical entity.... and sixteen 32-bit registers
Processor register
In computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of Computer storage available on the CPU whose contents can be accessed more quickly than storage available elsewhere.... . Program code had to lie within the first 64 Mbyte
Megabyte
Megabyte is a SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for digital information computer storage or transmission and is equal to 106 bytes.... of the memory, as the program counter
Program counter
The program counter, or PC is a processor register that indicates where the computer is in its instruction sequence. Depending on the details of the particular computer, the PC holds either the address of the instruction being executed, or the address of the next instruction to be executed.... was limited to 26 bits because the top 6 bits of the 32-bit register served as status flags. The ARM2 was possibly the simplest useful 32-bit microprocessor in the world, with only 30,000 transistor
Transistor
In electronics, a transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to Electronic amplifier or switch Electronics signals. A transistor is made of a solid piece of a semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit.... s (compare with Motorola's six-year older 68000
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit Complex instruction set computer microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor .... model with around 70,000 transistors). Much of this simplicity comes from not having microcode
Microcode
Microcode is a layer of lowest-level instructions involved in the implementation of machine code instructions in many computers and other processors; it resides in a special high-speed memory and translates machine instructions into sequences of detailed circuit-level operations.... (which represents about one-quarter to one-third of the 68000) and, like most CPUs of the day, not including any cache
Cache
In computer science, a cache is a collection of data duplicating original values stored elsewhere or computed earlier, where the original data is expensive to fetch or to compute, compared to the cost of reading the cache.... . This simplicity led to its low power usage, while performing better than the Intel 80286
Intel 80286
The Intel 286, introduced on February 1, 1982, was an x86 16-bit microprocessor with 134,000 transistors.It was widely used in IBM PC compatible computers during the mid 1980s to early 1990s.... . A successor, ARM3, was produced with a 4KB cache, which further improved performance.
Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer Inc., is an United States multinational corporation which designs and manufactures consumer electronics and software products.... and VLSI Technology
VLSI Technology
VLSI Technology, Inc was a company which designed and manufactured custom and semi-custom Integrated circuits. The company was based in Silicon Valley, with headquarters at 1109 McKay Drive in San Jose, California.... started working with Acorn on newer versions of the ARM core. The work was so important that Acorn spun off the design team in 1990 into a new company called Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. For this reason, ARM is sometimes expanded as Advanced RISC Machine instead of Acorn RISC Machine. Advanced RISC Machines became ARM Ltd when its parent company, ARM Holdings plc, floated on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange or LSE is a stock exchange located in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1801, it is one of the largest stock exchanges in the world, with many overseas listings as well as British companies.... and NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ is an United States stock exchange. It is the largest Electronic trading screen-based Stock trading market in the United States.... in 1998.
The new Apple-ARM work would eventually turn into the ARM6, first released in 1991. Apple used the ARM6-based ARM 610 as the basis for their Apple Newton
Apple Newton
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Inc. for the Newton . Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation.... PDA. In 1994, Acorn used the ARM 610 as the main CPU
Central processing unit
A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage.... in their Risc PC
Risc PC
The Risc PC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/ARM architecture computer, launched in 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes.... computers. DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering United States company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC .... licensed the ARM6 architecture (which caused some confusion because they also produced the DEC Alpha
DEC Alpha
Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, was a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , designed to replace the 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computer ISA and its implementations.... ) and produced the StrongARM
StrongARM
The StrongARM is a family of microprocessors that implemented the ARM architecture instruction set architecture . It was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , and later sold to Intel who continued to manufacture it, before replacing it with the XScale.... . At 233 MHz this CPU drew only 1 watt
WATT
WATT is a radio station broadcasting a News radio-Talk radio-Sports radio format. Licensed to Cadillac, Michigan, it first began broadcasting in 1945.... of power (more recent versions draw far less). This work was later passed to Intel as a part of a lawsuit settlement, and Intel took the opportunity to supplement their aging i960
Intel i960
Intel's i960 was a RISC-based microprocessor design that became popular during the early 1990s as an embedded system microcontroller, becoming a best-selling CPU in that field, along with the competing AMD 29000.... line with the StrongARM. Intel later developed its own high performance implementation known as XScale
Intel XScale
The XScale, a Central processing unit, is Marvell Technology Group's implementation of the fifth generation of the ARM architecture, and consists of several distinct families: IXP, IXC, IOP, PXA and CE .... which it has since sold to Marvell
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell is an USA producer of storage, Telecommunications and consumer semiconductor products. Their products can be found in a range of applications:... .
The ARM core has remained largely the same size throughout these changes. ARM2 had 30,000 transistors, while the ARM6 grew to only 35,000. ARM's business has always been to sell IP cores, which licensees use to create microcontrollers and CPUs based on this core. The most successful implementation has been the ARM7TDMI
ARM7TDMI
The ARM7TDMI processor is a 32-bit RISC Central processing unit designed by ARM_Ltd, and licensed for manufacture by an array of semiconductor companies.... with hundreds of millions sold in almost every kind of microcontroller equipped device. The idea is that the Original Design Manufacturer
Original Design Manufacturer
An original design manufacturer is a company which manufactures a product which ultimately will be branded by another firm for sale. Such companies allow the brand firm to produce without having to engage in the organization or running of a factory.... combines the ARM core with a number of optional parts to produce a complete CPU, one that can be built on old semiconductor fabs and still deliver substantial performance at a low cost.
ARM licensed about 1.6 billion cores in 2005. In 2005, about 1 billion ARM cores went into mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites.... s.
As of January 2008, over 10 billion ARM cores have been built, and iSuppli predicts that 5 billion a year will ship in 2011.
The common architecture supported on smartphones, Personal Digital Assistants and other handheld device
Handheld device
A mobile device is a pocket-sized computing device, typically having a display screen with touch down input or a miniature keyboard. In the case of the Personal digital assistant the input and output are combined into a touch-screen interface .... s is ARMv4. XScale and ARM926 processors are ARMv5TE, and are now more numerous in high-end devices than the StrongARM
StrongARM
The StrongARM is a family of microprocessors that implemented the ARM architecture instruction set architecture . It was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , and later sold to Intel who continued to manufacture it, before replacing it with the XScale.... , ARM925T and ARM7TDMI
ARM7TDMI
The ARM7TDMI processor is a 32-bit RISC Central processing unit designed by ARM_Ltd, and licensed for manufacture by an array of semiconductor companies.... based ARMv4 processors.
A memory management unit , sometimes called paged memory management unit , is a computer hardware component responsible for handling accesses to computer memory requested by the central processing unit ....
BBC Micro expansion units, for the BBC Microcomputer were peripherals in a box with the same profile and styling as the main computer.... second processor for BBC Micro
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation....
ARM2
ARMv2
ARM2
Architecture 2 added the MUL (multiply) instruction
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer based on their own 32-bit ARM architecture RISC Central processing unit.... , Chessmachine
Chessmachine
The ChessMachine was a chess engine sold between 1991 and 1995 by TASC . It was unique at the time for incorporating both an ARM architecture coprocessor for the chess engine on an ISA bus which plugged into a IBM PC and a software interface running on the PC to display a chess board and control the engine....
ARMv2a
ARM250
Integrated MEMC (MMU), Graphics and IO processor. Architecture 2a added the SWP and SWPB (swap) instructions.
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer based on their own 32-bit ARM architecture RISC Central processing unit....
4K has several uses including:* A temperature of 4 kelvin* 4000_, the number* As a category in demoscene compos* 4K digital film standard resolutions, see List of common resolutions#Television.2Fmovies.... unified
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer based on their own 32-bit ARM architecture RISC Central processing unit....
ARM6
ARMv3
ARM60
v3 architecture first to support addressing 32 bits of memory (as opposed to 26 bits)
The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was a video game console originally produced by Panasonic in . Further renditions of the hardware were released in by Sanyo and LG Group.... , Zarlink GPS Receiver
ARM600
As ARM60, cache and coprocessor bus (for FPA10 floating-point unit).
The Risc PC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/ARM architecture computer, launched in 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes.... , Apple Newton 100 series
Apple Newton
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Inc. for the Newton . Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation....
Kilobyte is a unit of Computer data storage equal to either 1,024 bytes or 1,000 bytes , depending on context.It is abbreviated in a number of ways: KB, kB, K and Kbyte.... unified
The Risc PC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/ARM architecture computer, launched in 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes.... prototype CPU card
The Risc PC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/ARM architecture computer, launched in 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes.... , Apple eMate 300
EMate 300
The eMate 300 was a personal digital assistant designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc. to the education market as a low-cost laptop computer running the Newton OS....
System-on-a-chip or system on chip refers to integrating all components of a computer or other Electronics system into a single integrated circuit .... .
The Psion Series 5 is a Personal Digital Assistant from Psion. It comes in two main variants, the Series 5 and the Series 5mx , the latter having a faster processor, clearer screen, and updated software....
The A7000 and A7000+ were Acorn Computers's entry level computer based on the Risc PC architecture, launched in 1995 is superseded some of the models of the Acorn Archimedes range....
ARM7500FE
As ARM7500, "FE" Added FPA and EDO memory controller.
The ARM7TDMI processor is a 32-bit RISC Central processing unit designed by ARM_Ltd, and licensed for manufacture by an array of semiconductor companies....
The is a 32-bit Handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo; resembling Sega's 8-bit Game Gear. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color.... , Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in 2004 in video gaming in Canada, the United States, and Japan.... , iPod
IPod
iPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Inc. and launched on . The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle.... , Lego NXT, Atmel
Atmel
Atmel Corporation is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. Its focus is on system-level solutions built around flash memory microcontrollers.... AT91SAM
AT91SAM
AT91SAM are a family of Atmel microcontrollers based on the 32-bit reduced instruction set computer microprocessors from ARM architecture. They include embedded flash memory and static random access memory computer data storage together with a number of peripherals and standard communications and computer networking bus s.... 7, Juice Box
Juice Box
The Juice Box is a low cost multimedia player made by toy manufacturer Mattel. The player features a screen with a native resolution of 240?160 pixel and runs ?Clinux, a microcontroller version of the Linux kernel.... , NXP Semiconductors LPC2000
LPC2000
LPC2000 is a series of 32-bit microcontrollers from NXP Semiconductors. They are based on a 1.8 V ARM7TDMI-S core operating at up to 80 MHz together with a variety of peripherals including serial interfaces, 10-bit Analog-to-digital converter/Digital-to-analog converter, timers, capture compare, Pulse-width modulation, Universal Serial Bus in... and
The Psion Series 5 is a Personal Digital Assistant from Psion. It comes in two main variants, the Series 5 and the Series 5mx , the latter having a faster processor, clearer screen, and updated software.... , Psion Revo
Psion Revo
The Psion Revo, launched in 1999, is a Personal Digital Assistant from Psion. It is the light version of Psion 5mx. It is software-compatible with the 5mx and has the same processor but is more lightweight , and substantially smaller .... /Revo Plus/Diamond Mako
ARM720T
As ARM7TDMI, cache
8 KB unified, MMU with Fast Context Switch Extension
The Zipit Wireless Messenger is a small clamshell device originally produced by Aeronix, which is now under the spin-off Zipit Wireless, Inc., that enables Instant Messaging .... , NXP Semiconductors
The StrongARM is a family of microprocessors that implemented the ARM architecture instruction set architecture . It was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , and later sold to Intel who continued to manufacture it, before replacing it with the XScale....
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Inc. for the Newton . Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation.... 2x00 series, Acorn Risc PC
Risc PC
The Risc PC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/ARM architecture computer, launched in 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes.... , Rebel/Corel Netwinder, Chalice CATS, Psion Netbook
LART is a single-board computer designed by staff of the Delft University of Technology.The creators advertise complete layout by means of Computer-aided design files, software and kernel patches for Linux.... , Intel Assabet, Ipaq
IPAQ
iPAQ presently refers to a Pocket PC and personal digital assistant first unveiled by Compaq in April 2000; the name was borrowed from Compaq's earlier iPAQ s.... H36x0, Balloon2, Zaurus SL-5x00, HP Jornada 7xx, Jornada 560 series
Jornada 560 series
The 560 series was the third and last series of Hewlett Packard's Pocket PC format Jornada devices. It debuted in October 2001.... , Palm Zire 31
The Risc PC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/ARM architecture computer, launched in 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes.... prototype CPU card
The GP32 is a hand held console built by the Korean company Game Park.... ,GP2X
GP2X
The GP2X is an open-source, Linux -based handheld video game console and media player created by GamePark Holdings of South Korea.The GP2X is designed for Homebrew developers as well as commercial developers.... (first core), Tapwave Zodiac
Tapwave Zodiac
Tapwave, founded in Mountain View, California in May 2001, introduced the Zodiac mobile entertainment console in October 2003. The product was designed to be a "high performance mobile entertainment system? centered on games, music, pictures, and video for 18 to 34 year old gamers and technology enthusiasts.... (Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. is an United States, multinational, Fortune 100, telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It is a manufacturer of wireless telephone handsets, also designing and selling wireless network infrastructure equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers.... i. MX1), Hewlet Packard HP-49/50 Calculators
HP-49 series
The HP 49G series are Hewlett-Packard manufactured graphing calculators. They are the successors of the HP-48 series, one of the best-selling calculator ranges among engineers, scientists, and students.... , Sun SPOT
Sun SPOT
Sun SPOT is a Wireless sensor network mote developed by Sun Microsystems. The device is built upon the Zigbee standard. Unlike other available mote systems, the Sun SPOT is built on the Squawk virtual machine Java Virtual Machine.... , [Cirrus Logic EP9302, EP9307, EP9312, EP9315], Samsung s3c2442 (HTC TyTN
HTC TyTN
The HTC TyTN is an Internet-enabled Windows Mobile Pocket PC smartphone designed and marketed by High Tech Computer Corporation of Taiwan. It has a touchscreen with a left-side slide-out QWERTY keyboard.... , FIC
First International Computer
First International Computer, Inc. is a Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer, that designs and manufactures computer products and electronic components for other electronics equipment manufacturers worldwide.... Neo FreeRunner
Neo FreeRunner
The Neo FreeRunner is a smartphone developed by the Openmoko project. It is the successor to the first development phase smartphone Neo 1973, and is intended for hacker , since it gives the user great customizability.... )
The GP2X is an open-source, Linux -based handheld video game console and media player created by GamePark Holdings of South Korea.The GP2X is designed for Homebrew developers as well as commercial developers.... (second core), Meizu M6 Mini Player
M6 Mini Player
The M6 miniPlayer, from Meizu, is a Flash memory-based portable media player that plays audio files in MP3, Windows Media Audio, WAV, FLAC, Monkey's Audio and Ogg and is also capable of Audio Video Interleave video playback on a 2.4-inch QVGA screen....
ARM9E is an ARM architecture 32-bit Reduced instruction set computer Central processing unit family. With this architecture, ARM moved from a von Neumann architecture to a Harvard architecture largely increasing its potential speed....
The is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in 2004 in video gaming in Canada, the United States, and Japan.... , Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finland Multinational corporation communications corporation, headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki.... N-Gage
N-Gage
The N-Gage is a mobile telephone and handheld game system based on the Nokia Series 60 platform. It started selling on October 7, 2003. It attempted to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance by including cellphone functionality.... , Conexant 802.11 chips
Sony Ericsson is a joint venture established on October 3, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to make mobile phones.... (K, W series); Siemens
Siemens AG
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft is Europe's largest engineering Conglomerate . Siemens' international headquarters are located in Berlin and Munich, Germany.... and Benq
BenQ
BenQ Corporation is a Taiwanese multi-national company that sells and markets consumer electronics, computing and communications devices under the "BenQ" brand name.... (x65 series and newer); Texas Instruments OMAP1710, OMAP1610, OMAP1611, OMAP1612, OMAP-L137; Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is a wireless telecommunications research and development company based in San Diego, California, California.Corporate history... MSM6100, MSM6125, MSM6225, MSM6245, MSM6250, MSM6255A, MSM6260, MSM6275, MSM6280, MSM6300, MSM6500, MSM6800; Freescale i.MX21
I.MX21
The Freescale i.MX21 is an application processor, consisting of anARM architecture processor core with some additional peripherals. It is part of Freescale's i.MX range of ARM9/11-based multimedia application processor family.... , i.MX27, Atmel
Atmel
Atmel Corporation is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. Its focus is on system-level solutions built around flash memory microcontrollers.... AT91SAM
AT91SAM
AT91SAM are a family of Atmel microcontrollers based on the 32-bit reduced instruction set computer microprocessors from ARM architecture. They include embedded flash memory and static random access memory computer data storage together with a number of peripherals and standard communications and computer networking bus s.... 9, NXP Semiconductors , GPH Wiz, Marvell
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell is an USA producer of storage, Telecommunications and consumer semiconductor products. Their products can be found in a range of applications:... Feroceon, NEC C10046F5-211-PN2-A SoC - undocumented core in the ATi Hollywood
Hollywood (graphics chip)
Hollywood is the name of the GPU used in Nintendo Wii video game console. It was designed by AMD ATi Technologies division and is manufactured using the same 90 nm CMOS process as the Broadway processor.... graphics chip used in the Wii.
My Book is a series of external hard drive produced by Western Digital. There are currently eight series of My Book drives; Essential Edition, Home Edition, Office Edition, Mirror Edition, Studio Edition, Premium Edition, Pro Edition and the World Edition.... II World Edition
BogoMips is an unscientific measurement of CPU speed made by the Linux kernel when it boots, to calibrate an internal busy-loop. An oft-quoted definition of the term is "the number of million times per second a processor can do absolutely nothing."... @ 600 MHz
Iyonix
IOP33x
IOP34x
1-2 core, RAID Acceleration
32K/32K L1, 512K L2, MMU
PXA210/PXA250
Applications processor, 7-stage pipeline
PXA210: 133 and 200 MHz, PXA250: 200, 300, and 400 MHz
iPAQ presently refers to a Pocket PC and personal digital assistant first unveiled by Compaq in April 2000; the name was borrowed from Compaq's earlier iPAQ s.... H3900, Sony
Sony
is a multinational corporation list of conglomerates corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding US$99.1 billion .... CLIÉ
CLIÉ
The Sony CLI? was a series of personal digital assistants running the Palm OS developed and marketed by Sony from 2000 to 2005. The devices introduced many new features to the PDA market, such as a jog-wheel interface, high-resolution displays, and Sony technologies like Memory Stick slots and ATRAC3 audio playback.... NX60, NX70V, NZ90
BogoMips is an unscientific measurement of CPU speed made by the Linux kernel when it boots, to calibrate an internal busy-loop. An oft-quoted definition of the term is "the number of million times per second a processor can do absolutely nothing."... @ 400 MHz
Gumstix is a US-based technology company that designs, builds and sells full-function miniature computers and related products. The small form factor gumstix "is just a computer".... , Palm Tungsten E2,Mentor Ranger & Stryder, iRex ILiad
ILiad
The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
is a multinational corporation list of conglomerates corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding US$99.1 billion .... CLIÉ
CLIÉ
The Sony CLI? was a series of personal digital assistants running the Palm OS developed and marketed by Sony from 2000 to 2005. The devices introduced many new features to the PDA market, such as a jog-wheel interface, high-resolution displays, and Sony technologies like Memory Stick slots and ATRAC3 audio playback.... NX73V, NX80V
Gumstix is a US-based technology company that designs, builds and sells full-function miniature computers and related products. The small form factor gumstix "is just a computer".... , HTC Universal, HP
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States.... hx4700, Zaurus SL-C1000, 3000, 3100, 3200, Dell Axim
Dell Axim
The Axim family of personal digital assistants was Dell, Inc. line of Windows Mobile-powered Pocket PC Devices. The first model, the Axim X5, was introduced in 2002, while the final model, the Axim X51, was discontinued on April 9, 2007.... x30, x50, and x51 series, Motorola Q,
Balloon3, Trolltech Greenphone
Greenphone
The Greenphone was a smartphone developed by Trolltech with Qtopia Phone Edition, a GUI and application platform embedded in Linux using mostly free software and open source software.... , Palm TX, Motorola Ezx Platform A728, A780, A910, A1200, E680, E680i, E680g, E690, E895, Rokr E2, Rokr E6, Fujitsu Siemens LOOX N560, Toshiba Portégé G500, Treo 650-755p, Zipit Z2
Zipit Wireless Messenger
The Zipit Wireless Messenger is a small clamshell device originally produced by Aeronix, which is now under the spin-off Zipit Wireless, Inc., that enables Instant Messaging ....
The NSLU2 is a Network-attached storage device made by Linksys introduced in 2004 and discontinued in 2008. It makes Universal Serial Bus Flash memory and hard disks accessible over a network using the Server Message Block protocol .... IXP460/IXP465
The Nokia N93 is a smartphone by Nokia especially designed for multimedia use. It was introduced in April 2006 and released in July 2006.The N93 has improved camera capabilities compared with the earlier Nokia N90.... , Nokia N95
Nokia N95
The Nokia N95 is a smartphone produced by Nokia. The N95's functions include those of a camera phone and portable media player, in addition to offering e-mail, web browser, local Wi-Fi connectivity and text messaging.... , Nokia N82
Nokia N82
The Nokia N82 is a smartphone announced by Nokia on November 14 2007. It is part of the company's Nokia Nseries line of smartphones which features the N-Gage 2.0 and the Nokia Music store .... ), Zune
Zune
Zune is the product-line brand name for the Zune portable media players, Zune software, and Zune Marketplace services sold by Microsoft, which provide online music, video, and podcast downloads.... , BUGbase, Nokia N800
Nokia N800
The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is a wireless Internet appliance from Nokia, originally announced at the Las Vegas, Nevada Consumer Electronics Show Summit in January 2007.... , Nokia N810
Nokia N810
The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet is an Internet appliance from Nokia, announced on 17 October, 2007 at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Despite Nokia's strong association with cellular products, the N810 is not a phone, but instead allows the user to browse the Internet and communicate using Wi-Fi networks or with a mobile phone via Bluetoo... , Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is a wireless telecommunications research and development company based in San Diego, California, California.Corporate history... MSM7200 (with integrated ARM926EJ-S Coprocessor@274MHz, used in Eten Glofiish, HTC TyTN II
HTC TyTN II
The HTC TyTN II is an Internet-enabled Windows Mobile Pocket PC smartphone designed and marketed by High Tech Computer Corporation of Taiwan. It has a tilting touchscreen with a left-side slide-out QWERTY keyboard.... , HTC Nike), Freescale i.MX31
I.MX31
The Freescale i.MX31 is an application processor, consisting of anARM architecture processor core with some additional peripherals. It is part of Freescale's i.MX range of ARM9/11-based multimedia application processor family.... (used in the original Zune 30gb and Toshiba Gigabeat S), Freescale MXC300-30 (Nokia E63
Nokia E63
Released late in 2008, the Nokia E63 is a "budget business phone" unlike the Nokia E71 which is more expensive. Although it looks very similar to E71 its body is made of plastic and not steel as in E71.... , Nokia E71
Nokia E71
The Nokia E71 is a smartphone from the Nokia Eseries range, a S60 platform 3rd Edition, second generation Feature Pack 1, device with a QWERTY keyboard targeting business users worldwide.... , Nokia 5800
Nokia 5800
The Nokia 5800 is a portable entertainment device by Nokia. The Nokia 5800, code-named "Tube," is a S60 platform smartphone. It is an XpressMusic series phone, which emphasizes music and multimedia playback.... , Nokia E51
Nokia E51
Nokia E51 is a Symbian OS smartphone by Nokia. It's the second Nokia UMTS / HSDPA dual band mobile. The phone is available with a black, silver or bronze-coloured border and backplate.... , Nokia E75
Nokia E75
The Nokia E75 is a smartphone from the Nokia Eseries range, a S60 platform 3rd Edition, second generation Feature Pack 2, device with a side siding QWERTY keyboard and a front keypad.... , Nokia N97
Nokia N97
The Nokia N97 is an upcoming "mobile computer" by Nokia, announced on December 2, 2008. It will be Nokia's second touch screen phone based on the S60 platform.... ), Qualcomm MSM7201A as seen in the HTC Dream
HTC Dream
The HTC Dream is an Internet-enabled smartphone with an operating system designed by Google and hardware designed by HTC Corporation. It is the first phone to the market that uses the Android mobile device platform.... .
The iPhone is an internet-connected multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a flush multi-touch screen and a minimal hardware interface.... , Apple iPod touch
IPod touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player and Wi-Fi mobile platform designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The product was launched on September 5, 2007 at an event called The Beat Goes On.... , Conexant CX2427X
Conexant
Conexant Systems Inc. is a publicly listed United States semiconductor company, which was formerly the semiconductor division of Rockwell International.... , Motorola RIZR Z8
Motorola RIZR Z8
The Motorola RIZR Z8 or MOTO Z8 is a smartphone manufactured by Motorola. Until the release of its successor, the Motorola Motorizr Z10, it was Motorola's flagship mobile phone.... , Motorola RIZR Z10, NVIDIA GoForce 6100
The abbreviation SBM can be:* School business manager* SBM Offshore, a Dutch-based oil services company* Sheboygan County Memorial Airport ... , Oregon State University OSWALD
Gumstix is a US-based technology company that designs, builds and sells full-function miniature computers and related products. The small form factor gumstix "is just a computer".... , Pandora
Pandora (console)
The Pandora is a seventh generation handheld game console, developed by former distributors and community members of the GP32 and GP2X handhelds on open source principles.... , Archos 5, FreeScale
Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004.... i.MX51-SOC
System-on-a-chip
System-on-a-chip or system on chip refers to integrating all components of a computer or other Electronics system into a single integrated circuit .... , BeagleBoard, Palm Pre
Palm Pre
The Palm Pre is an internet-connected multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm, Inc. with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard....
The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore is a multicore processor providing up to 4 cache-coherent Cortex-A9 cores each implementing the ARM architecture instruction set architecture....
Broadcom Corporation is an United States supplier of integrated circuits for broadband communications. Founded in 1991 by Henry Samueli and Henry T.... is a user, TMS570 from Texas Instruments
Energy Micro AS is a manufacturer of 32-bit flash memory microcontrollers. The semiconductor company focuses on 32-bit microcontrollers with ultra low energy consumption.... 's EFM32
EFM32
The EFM?32, Energy Friendly Microcontrollers, is a family of 32-bit RISC flash memory microcontrollers designed by Energy Micro AS. EFM32 is a mixed-signal microcontroller focusing on supporting ultra low power battery operated solutions.... , microcontroller family, ST Microelectronics , NXP Semiconductors
A memory management unit , sometimes called paged memory management unit , is a computer hardware component responsible for handling accesses to computer memory requested by the central processing unit ....
Typical MIPS @ MHz
In application
Design notes
To keep the design clean, simple and fast, it was hardwired without microcode
Microcode
Microcode is a layer of lowest-level instructions involved in the implementation of machine code instructions in many computers and other processors; it resides in a special high-speed memory and translates machine instructions into sequences of detailed circuit-level operations.... , like the much simpler 8-bit 6502
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured central processing unit on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of competing designs from larger companies such... processor used in prior Acorn microcomputers.
The ARM architecture includes the following RISC features:
Load/store architecture
No support for misaligned memory accesses (now supported in ARMv6 cores, with some exceptions related to load/store multiple word instructions)
A register file is an array of processor registers in a central processing unit. Modern integrated circuit-based register files are usually implemented by way of fast static RAMs with multiple ports....
Fixed instruction width of 32 bits to ease decoding and pipelining, at the cost of decreased code density. (Later, "Thumb mode" increased code density.)
Mostly single-cycle execution
To compensate for the simpler design, compared with contemporary processors like the Intel 80286
Intel 80286
The Intel 286, introduced on February 1, 1982, was an x86 16-bit microprocessor with 134,000 transistors.It was widely used in IBM PC compatible computers during the mid 1980s to early 1990s.... and Motorola 68020
Motorola 68020
The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. It is the successor to the Motorola 68010 and is succeeded by the Motorola 68030.... , some unique design features were used:
Conditional execution of most instructions, reducing branch overhead and compensating for the lack of a branch predictor
Branch predictor
In computer architecture, a branch predictor is the part of a central processing unit that determines whether a conditional branch in the instruction flow of a program is likely to be taken or not....
Arithmetic instructions alter condition codes only when desired
A barrel shifter is a digital circuit that can Bit shift a Word by a specified number of bits in one clock cycle. It can be implemented as a sequence of multiplexers , and in such an implementation the output of one MUX is connected to the input of the next MUX in a way that depends on the shift distance.... which can be used without performance penalty with most arithmetic instructions and address calculations
Addressing modes are an aspect of the instruction set architecture in most central processing unit designs. The various addressing modes that are defined in a given instruction set architecture define how Machine code Instruction in that architecture identify the operand of each instruction.... s
A link register, in many CPU architectures such as the IBM POWER, ARM architecture, and the PA-RISC family, is a special purpose processor register which holds the address to return to when a function call completes.... for fast leaf function calls.
In computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous communication signal from hardware indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change in execution.... subsystem with switched register banks
An interesting addition to the ARM design is the use of a 4-bit condition code on the front of every instruction, meaning that execution of every instruction is optionally conditional.
Other CPU architectures typically only have condition codes on branch instructions.
This cuts down significantly on the encoding bits available for displacements in memory access instructions, but on the other hand it avoids branch instructions when generating code for small if statements. The standard example of this is the Euclidean algorithm
Euclidean algorithm
In number theory, the Euclidean algorithm is an algorithm to determine the greatest common divisor of two elements of any Euclidean domain . Its major significance is that it does not require factorization the two integers, and it is also significant in that it is one of the oldest algorithms known, dating back to the ancient Greeks.... :
C is a general-purpose computer programming language originally developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories to implement the Unix operating system.... , the loop is:
while (i != j)
In ARM assembly
Assembly language
An assembly language is a low-level language for programming computers. It implements a symbolic representation of the numeric machine codes and other constants needed to program a particular CPU architecture.... , the loop is:
loop CMP Ri, Rj ; set condition "NE" if (i != j)
; "GT" if (i > j),
; or "LT" if (i < j)
SUBGT Ri, Ri, Rj ; if "GT", i = i-j;
SUBLT Rj, Rj, Ri ; if "LT", j = j-i;
BNE loop ; if "NE", then loop
which avoids the branches around the then and else clauses.
Another unique feature of the instruction set is the ability to fold shifts and rotates into the "data processing" (arithmetic, logical, and register-register move) instructions, so that, for example, the C statement
a += (j << 2);
could be rendered as a single word, single cycle instruction on the ARM.
ADD Ra, Ra, Rj, LSL #2
This results in the typical ARM program being denser than expected with fewer memory accesses; thus the pipeline is used more efficiently. Even though the ARM runs at what many would consider to be low speeds, it nevertheless competes quite well with much more complex CPU designs.
The ARM processor also has some features rarely seen in other RISC architectures, such as PC
Program counter
The program counter, or PC is a processor register that indicates where the computer is in its instruction sequence. Depending on the details of the particular computer, the PC holds either the address of the instruction being executed, or the address of the next instruction to be executed.... -relative addressing (indeed, on the ARM the PC
Program counter
The program counter, or PC is a processor register that indicates where the computer is in its instruction sequence. Depending on the details of the particular computer, the PC holds either the address of the instruction being executed, or the address of the next instruction to be executed.... is one of its 16 registers) and pre- and post-increment addressing modes.
Another item of note is that the ARM has been around for a while, with the instruction set increasing somewhat over time. Some early ARM processors (prior to ARM7TDMI), for example, have no instruction to store a two-byte quantity, thus, strictly speaking, for them it's not possible to generate code that would behave the way one would expect for C objects of type "volatile short" .
The ARM7 and earlier designs have a three stage pipeline; the stages being fetch, decode, and execute. Higher performance designs, such as the ARM9, have a five stage pipeline. Additional changes for higher performance include a faster adder, and more extensive branch prediction logic.
The architecture provides a non-intrusive way of extending the instruction set using "coprocessors" which can be addressed using MCR, MRC, MRRC and MCRR commands from software. The coprocessor space is divided logically into 16 coprocessors with numbers from 0 to 15, coprocessor 15 (cp15) being reserved for some typical control functions like managing the caches and MMU
Memory management unit
A memory management unit , sometimes called paged memory management unit , is a computer hardware component responsible for handling accesses to computer memory requested by the central processing unit .... operation (on processors that have one).
In ARM-based machines, peripheral devices are usually attached to the processor by mapping their physical registers into ARM memory space or into the coprocessor space or connecting to another device (a bus) which in turn attaches to the processor. Coprocessor accesses have lower latency so some peripherals (for example XScale interrupt controller) are designed to be accessible in both ways (through memory and through coprocessors).
Thumb
To improve compiled code-density, processors from the ARM7TDMI on have featured the Thumb mode. When in this mode, the processor executes 16-bit instructions. Most of these 16-bit-wide Thumb instructions are directly mapped to normal ARM instructions. The space-saving comes from making some of the instruction operands implicit and limiting the number of possibilities compared to the full ARM mode instruction.
In Thumb, the smaller opcodes have less functionality. For example, only branches can be conditional, and many opcodes are restricted to accessing only half of all of the CPU's general purpose registers. The shorter opcodes give improved code density overall, even though some operations require extra instructions. In situations where the memory port or bus width is constrained to less than 32 bits, the shorter Thumb opcodes allow increased performance compared with 32-bit ARM code, as less program code may need to be loaded into the processor over the constrained memory bandwidth.
The is a 32-bit Handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo; resembling Sega's 8-bit Game Gear. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color.... , typically have a small amount of RAM accessible with a full 32-bit datapath; the majority is accessed via a 16 bit or narrower secondary datapath. In this situation, it usually makes sense to compile Thumb code and hand-optimise a few of the most CPU-intensive sections using full 32-bit ARM instructions, placing these wider instructions into the 32-bit bus accessible memory.
The first processor with a Thumb instruction decoder was the ARM7TDMI. All ARM9 and later families, including XScale
Intel XScale
The XScale, a Central processing unit, is Marvell Technology Group's implementation of the fifth generation of the ARM architecture, and consists of several distinct families: IXP, IXC, IOP, PXA and CE .... , have included a Thumb instruction decoder.
Digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of the signal s by a sequence of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals.... and multimedia applications, a few new instructions were added to the set . These are signified by an "E" in the name of the ARMv5TE and ARMv5TEJ architectures. E-variants also imply T,D,M and I.
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing, generally in real-time computing.... architectures. They are variations on signed multiply-accumulate, saturated add and subtract, and count leading zeros.
Jazelle
Jazelle is a technique that allows Java Bytecode to be executed directly in the ARM architecture as a third execution state alongside the existing ARM and Thumb-mod
Thumb-2
Thumb-2 technology made its debut in the ARM1156 core, announced in 2003. Thumb-2 extends the limited 16-bit instruction set of Thumb with additional 32-bit instructions to give the instruction set more breadth. The resulting stated aim for Thumb-2 is to achieve code density similar to Thumb with performance similar to the ARM instruction set on 32-bit memory.
Thumb-2 also extends both the ARM and Thumb instruction set with yet more instructions, including bit-field manipulation, table branches, and conditional execution.
All ARMv7 chips support the Thumb-2 instruction set.
Some chips, such as the Cortex-M3, support only the Thumb-2 instruction set.
Other chips in the Cortex and ARM11 series support both "ARM instruction set mode" and "Thumb-2 instruction set mode"
.
Thumb Execution Environment (ThumbEE)
ThumbEE, also known as Thumb-2EE, and marketed as (Runtime Compilation Target), was announced in 2005, first appearing in the Cortex-A8 processor. ThumbEE provides a small extension to the Thumb-2 extended Thumb instruction set, making the instruction set particularly suited to code generated at runtime (e.g. by JIT compilation
Just-in-time compilation
In computing, just-in-time compilation , also known as dynamic translation, is a technique for improving the runtime performance of a computer program.... ) in managed Execution Environments. ThumbEE is a target for languages such as Limbo
Limbo programming language
Limbo is a programming language for writing distributed systems and is the language used to write Application software for the Inferno operating system.... , Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java .... , C#, Perl
Perl
In computer programming, Perl is a high-level programming language, List of programming languages by category, Interpreter , dynamic programming language.... and Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose high-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python's core syntax and semantics are Minimalism , while the standard library is large and comprehensive.... , and allows JIT compilers to output smaller compiled code without impacting performance.
New features provided by ThumbEE include automatic null pointer checks on every load and store instruction, an instruction to perform an array bounds check. Access to registers r8-r15 (where the Jazelle/DBX Java VM state is held) and the ability to branch to handlers—small sections of frequently called code—commonly used to implement a feature of a high level language, such as allocating memory for a new object.
Advanced SIMD (NEON)
The Advanced SIMD extension, marketed as NEON technology, is a combined 64 and 128 bit SIMD
SIMD
In computing, SIMD is a technique employed to achieve data level parallelism.... (Single Instruction Multiple Data) instruction set that provides standardized acceleration for media and signal processing applications. NEON can execute MP3 audio decoding on CPUs running at 10 MHz and can run the GSM AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) speech codec
Codec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoder and/or Decoding methods a digital data stream or signal . The word codec is a portmanteau of 'compressor-decompressor' or, most commonly, 'coder-decoder'.... at no more than 13 MHz. It features a comprehensive instruction set, separate register files and independent execution hardware. NEON supports 8-, 16-, 32- and 64-bit integer and single precision floating-point data and operates in SIMD
SIMD
In computing, SIMD is a technique employed to achieve data level parallelism.... operations for handling audio/video processing as well as graphics and gaming processing. In NEON, the SIMD supports up to 16 operations at the same time.
VFP
VFP technology is a coprocessor extension to the ARM architecture. It provides low-cost single-precision and double-precision floating-point computation fully compliant with the ANSI/IEEE Std 754-1985 Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic. VFP provides floating-point computation suitable for a wide spectrum of applications such as PDAs, smartphones, voice compression and decompression, three-dimensional graphics and digital audio, printers, set-top boxes, and automotive applications. The VFP architecture also supports execution of short vector instructions allowing SIMD
SIMD
In computing, SIMD is a technique employed to achieve data level parallelism.... (Single Instruction Multiple Data) parallelism. This is useful in graphics and signal-processing applications by reducing code size and increasing throughput.
Other floating-point and/or SIMD coprocessors found in ARM-based processors include FPA, FPE, iwMMXt. They provide some of the same functionality as VFP but are not opcode
Opcode
In computer technology, an opcode is the portion of a machine language instruction that specifies the operation to be performed. Their specification and format are laid out in the instruction set architecture of the processor in question .... -compatible with it.
Security Extensions (TrustZone)
The Security Extensions, marketed as TrustZone(TM) Technology, is found in ARMv6KZ and later application profile architectures. It provides a low cost alternative to adding an additional dedicated security core to a SoC
System-on-a-chip
System-on-a-chip or system on chip refers to integrating all components of a computer or other Electronics system into a single integrated circuit .... , by providing two virtual processors backed by hardware based access control. This enables the application core to switch between two states, referred to as worlds (to reduce confusion with other names for capability domains), in a manner such that information can be prevented from leaking from the more trusted world to the less trusted world. This world switch is generally orthogonal to all other capabilities of the processor and so each world can operate independently of the other while using the same core. Memory and peripherals are then made aware of the operating world of the core and may use this to provide access control to secrets and code on the device. A typical application of TrustZone Technology is to run a rich operating system in the less trusted world, and smaller security-specialized code in the more trusted world (known as TrustZone Software, a TrustZone optimized version of the Trusted Foundations(TM) Software developed by ).
In practice, since the specific implementation details of TrustZone are proprietary and have not been publicly disclosed for review, it is unclear what level of assurance is provided for a given threat model.
ARM licensees
ARM Ltd does not manufacture and sell CPU devices based on their own designs, but rather, licenses the processor architecture to interested parties. ARM offers a variety of licensing terms, varying in cost and deliverables. To all licensees, ARM provides an integratable hardware description of the ARM core, as well as complete software development toolset (compiler
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language . The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program.... , debugger
Debugger
A debugger is a computer program that is used to test and debug other programs. The code to be examined might alternatively be running on an Instruction Set Simulator, a technique that allows great power in its ability to halt when specific conditions are encountered but which will typically be much slower than executing the code directly on... , SDK
SDK
SDK may refer to:* Slovak Democratic Coalition* Software development kit... ), and the right to sell manufactured silicon
Silicon
Silicon is the most common metalloid. It is a chemical element, which has the symbol Si and atomic number 14. The atomic mass is 28.0855.... containing the ARM CPU. Fabless licensees, who wish to integrate an ARM core into their own chip design, are usually only interested in acquiring a ready-to-manufacture verified IP core. For these customers, ARM delivers a gate netlist description of the chosen ARM core, along with an abstracted simulation model and test programs to aid design integration and verification. More ambitious customers, including integrated device manufacturers (IDM) and foundry operators, choose to acquire the processor IP in synthesizable RTL (Verilog
Verilog
In the semiconductor and electronic design industry, Verilog is a hardware description language used to model Electronics#Electronic systems. Verilog HDL, not to be confused with VHDL, is most commonly used in the design, verification, and implementation of Digital circuit logic chips at the Register transfer level level of Abstraction... ) form. With the synthesizable RTL, the customer has the ability to perform architectural level optimizations and extensions. This allows the designer to achieve exotic design goals not otherwise possible with an unmodified netlist (high clock speed, very low power consumption, instruction set extensions, etc.). While ARM does not grant the licensee the right to resell the ARM architecture itself, licensees may freely sell manufactured product (chip devices, evaluation boards, complete systems, etc.). Merchant
Merchant
Merchants function as professionals who deal with trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to produce profit.... foundries can be a special case; not only are they allowed to sell finished silicon containing ARM cores, they generally hold the right to remanufacture ARM cores for other customers.
Like most IP vendors, ARM prices its IP based on perceived value. In architectural terms, the lower performance ARM cores command a lower license cost than the higher performance cores. In terms of silicon implementation, a synthesizable core is more expensive than a hard macro (blackbox) core. Complicating price matters, a merchant foundry who holds an ARM license (such as Samsung and Fujitsu) can offer reduced licensing costs to its fab customers. In exchange for acquiring the ARM core through the foundry's in-house design services, the customer can reduce or eliminate payment of ARM's upfront license fee. Compared to dedicated semiconductor foundries (such as TSMC
TSMC
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Limited is the world's largest dedicated independent semiconductor Foundry , with its headquarters and main operations located in the Hsinchu Science Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan.... and UMC
United Microelectronics Corporation
UMC was founded as Taiwan's first semiconductor company in 1980 as a spin-off of the government-sponsored institute Industrial Technology Research Institute.... ) without in-house design services, Fujitsu/Samsung charge 2 to 3 times more per manufactured wafer. For low to mid volume applications, a design service foundry offers lower overall pricing (through subsidization of the license fee). For high volume mass produced parts, the long term cost reduction achievable through lower wafer pricing reduces the impact of ARM's NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) costs, making the dedicated foundry a better choice.
Many semiconductor or IC design firms hold ARM licenses; Analog Devices
Analog Devices
Analog Devices is an United States Multinational corporation producer of semiconductor devices. Analog specializes in analog-to-digital converter, digital-to-analog converter, MEMS, and digital signal processing chips for consumer and industrial goods.... , Atmel
Atmel
Atmel Corporation is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. Its focus is on system-level solutions built around flash memory microcontrollers.... , Broadcom
Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is an United States supplier of integrated circuits for broadband communications. Founded in 1991 by Henry Samueli and Henry T.... , Cirrus Logic
Cirrus Logic
Cirrus Logic is a fabless semiconductor company specializing in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits . They are presently headquartered in Austin, Texas.... , Energy Micro
Energy Micro
Energy Micro AS is a manufacturer of 32-bit flash memory microcontrollers. The semiconductor company focuses on 32-bit microcontrollers with ultra low energy consumption.... , Faraday technology
Faraday Technology
Faraday Technology is a turnkey application-specific IC and silicon intellectual property provider headquartered in Taiwan, with a network of sales and research offices in the United States, Japan, Europe, and China.... , Freescale, Fujitsu
Fujitsu
is a Japanese company specializing in semiconductors, air conditioners, computers , telecommunications, and Service , and is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Tokyo.... , Intel (through its settlement with Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering United States company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC .... ), IBM, Infineon Technologies
Infineon Technologies
Infineon Technologies Aktiengesellschaft was founded in April 1999 when the semiconductor operations of parent company, Siemens AG, were spun off to form a separate legal entity.... , Nintendo
Nintendo
is a global company located in Kyoto, Japan founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel.... , NXP Semiconductors, OKI
Oki Electric Industry
is a Japan electronics company, founded in January 1881 by Kibataro Oki.... , Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is a wireless telecommunications research and development company based in San Diego, California, California.Corporate history... , Samsung
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics is the world's largest electronics company, headquartered in Seocho Samsung Town in Seoul, South Korea. It is the largest South Korean company and the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group.... , Sharp
Sharp Corporation
is a Japanese electronics manufacturer, founded in 1912.It takes its name from one of its founder's first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1915.... , STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics is an Italy-France electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for Europe and emerging markets, are based in Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V.... , Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments , better known in the electronics industry as TI, is an United States company based in Dallas, Texas, Texas, United States, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology.... and VLSI
VLSI Technology
VLSI Technology, Inc was a company which designed and manufactured custom and semi-custom Integrated circuits. The company was based in Silicon Valley, with headquarters at 1109 McKay Drive in San Jose, California.... are some of the many companies who have licensed the ARM in one form or another. Although ARM's license terms are covered by NDA
Non-disclosure agreement
A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement, confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a law contract between at least two party that outlines confidential materials or knowledge the parties wish to share with one another for certain pur... , within the IP industry, ARM is widely known to be among the most expensive CPU cores. A single customer product containing a basic ARM core can incur a one-time license fee in excess of (USD) $200,000. Where significant quantity and architectural modification are involved, the license fee can exceed $10M.
ARM believes that its base of 200+ semiconductor licensees gives it a chance to succeed in the ongoing controversies regarding the use of ARM or Intel architectures in mobile computers.
Approximate licensing costs
ARM's 2006 annual report and accounts state that royalties totalling 88.7 million GBP (164.1 million USD) were the result of licensees shipping 2.45 billion units. This is equivalent to 0.036 GBP (0.067 USD) per unit shipped. However, this is averaged across all cores, including expensive new cores and inexpensive older cores.
In the same year ARM's licensing revenues for processor cores were £65.2 million ($119.5 million), in a year when 65 processor licenses were signed, an average of 1 million GBP (1.84 million USD) per license. Again, this is averaged across both new and old cores.
Given that ARM's 2006 income from processor cores was approximately 60% from royalties and 40% from licenses, ARM makes the equivalent of 0.06 GBP (0.11 USD) per unit shipped including both royalties and licenses. However, as one-off licenses are typically bought for new technologies, unit sales (and hence royalties) are dominated by more established products. Hence, these figures above do not reflect the true costs of any single ARM product.
Inferno is an operating system for creating and supporting distributed services.It was based on the experience of Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and the further research of Bell Labs into operating systems, languages, on-the-fly compilers, graphics, security, networking and portability....
DirectBand is a North American wireless datacasting network owned and operated by Microsoft. It uses FM radio broadcasts in over 100 cities to constantly transmit data to a variety of devices, including portable GPS devices, wristwatches and home weather stations....
AMULET is a series of microprocessors that implement the ARM architecture processor architecture. Developed by the group under the University of Manchester's computer science University of Manchester School of Computer Science , AMULET is unique from other ARM implementations in that it is an Asynchronous circuit#Asynchronous CPU, not makin... - a family of asynchronous ARMs
LPC2000 is a series of 32-bit microcontrollers from NXP Semiconductors. They are based on a 1.8 V ARM7TDMI-S core operating at up to 80 MHz together with a variety of peripherals including serial interfaces, 10-bit Analog-to-digital converter/Digital-to-analog converter, timers, capture compare, Pulse-width modulation, Universal Serial Bus in...
File:BeagleBoard described.jpgTexas Instruments OMAP is a Texas Instruments proprietary microprocessor for multimedia application software. Many mobile phones use OMAP microprocessors, including most of Nokia Nseries range.... - an ARM core plus DSP and application acceleration cores
ARM Instruction Set Simulator, Armulator, is one of the software development tools provided by ARM Limited to all licensees of the ARM architecture....
ARMware is a multi-platform software emulator for ARM architecture based personal digital assistant. It has a built-in dynamic recompiler to translate the ARM machine code to x86 machine code.... , a virtual machine that emulates an ARM-based PDA.
SkyEye simulator - an open source ARM Instruction Set Simulator
