ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 16/32-bit RISC microprocessors, data engines, graphics processors, digital libraries, embedded memories, peripherals, software and development tools, as well as analog functions and high-speed connectivity products. Combined with the company’s broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies.
The origin of ARM goes back to design company Acorn Computers company of the personal computer established by the researcher and the student at the Cambridge university in the UK in 1979.
At that time, the first product of Acorn was domestic computer "Atom" equipped with ROM and RAM of the processor and 12Kbyte of high-speed 1MHz. Acorn was involved in the product development for the computer education promotion in the UK in cooperation with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and announced the product of "BBC micro" with this in 1982. However, Apple. in the United States that separated the Atlantic Ocean almost announced product "Lisa" equipped with 16bit processor and the Windows environment to a simultaneous period. At that time, Acorn that saw this paid attention to being able the organization of the special project team to the research and development section to develop the product that exceeded "Lisa", and the execution of one instruction with one clock, and started the processor development by RISC architecture that was still a new field. This team was very small that had been organized with only 12 engineers.
"Acorn RISC Machine:ARM1" that became the first ARM processor as a result of this project in 1985 is born. This processor was a number of transistors that manufactured by VLSI Technology in 3um process, and did not come up to 25000. Afterwards, "ARM2" that became an version-up to which an additional instruction set was supported was announced, and "ARM2" was installed in multimedia PC"Archimedes" of the Acorn.
It has been decided to do a joint business by three companies 1990 year of Acorn. Apple, VLSI Technology. This was the one that had been planned because of the start-up of PDA business to which the Apple had been advancing development. The common enterprise brings it forth in shape of company establishment in shape that of each invests talent (Acorn), capital (Apple), design, and processing technology (VLSI) as a result in November of the same year. "Advanced RISC Machines Ltd." and the employee were composed of 12 engineers from the Acorn as for the name of the company, and they invited talent from the outside as a person in charge of management. It chooses from the relation to Robin Saxby to work for Motorola to have supplied the chip to the Acorn since before, and it arrives at one's post as CEO after it had seen it with 12 people.
The target of a new company is an expansion of 32bit RISC chip market where "Low-cost, low power, and high performance" can be united. However, Robin Saxby who was CEO had to decide how to manage a new company as an immediate task. Choices amalgamated with the semiconductor company where 2 and one was powerful, and made the new business section to which earnings were raised by the additional value, and another choices were to concentrate on the design and the marketing research, and to have become semiconductor companies in shape to consign manufacturing to the subcontractor. However, ARM designed CPU core that became a basic technique, and established the business model of granting the license to the semiconductor company as semiconductor design property (IP).
This business model became the prototype of IP license business model present afterwards.
It was imposed on ARM., and the first target was development of a special chip of PDA product having been requested by Apple. Apple demanded a variety of specification changes from ARM for the function achievement only for PDA. The one that ..main.. became it was correspondence of the big endian to 32bit complete instruction. This chip was adopted for Apple for the first time with the product of "ARM600". Afterwards, "ARM610" adopted for PDA product equipped with OS of "Newton" was developed.
At last, the customer in the business as by the side and the IP license to advance the collaborative project in PDA business with Apple came to be able to acquire it. GEC-Plessey Semiconductor in the UK acquired the license of the first ARM processor at the end of 1991.
It had the concern of the ARM processor with Sharp in Japan having licensed the Apple Newton technology at a simultaneous period, and the first licensee in Japan in 1992.
The Texas Instruments(TI) licensed in the ARM7 core in 1993. TI advances the chip development for the cellular phone of the cellular phone (GSM form) in Europe for the request of Nokia in Finland, and to fill a necessary requirement (low-cost, low power, and low voltage operation) for the cellular phone from Nokia, adds a lot of new features to a current ARM6 core. At this time, the epoch-making one is called the added function and Thumb, and a condensable function of standard instruction length (32bit) in half (16bit). This function was added from the ARM7 core. As a result, it contributed because a great decrease of the code size became possible, and the amount of use of the memory cash was suppressed to the achievement of a necessary power saving as the cellular phone.
The number of enterprises of the acquisition of the license of the ARM processor has increased following TI because of the success in the GSM cellular phone in Nokia. TI and the company by a powerful semiconductor company such as South Korea Samsung Electronics. For the application of the ARM processor to extend excluding the cellular phone field since ARM7, and to fill those specification and demand performance, the road map of the product is continued in shape to add the instruction set of the addition and the logic of an additional function.
ARM added the lineup of the Cortex series as the latest CPU core family though it had continued the road map of CPU core product in shape named ARM7･ARM9･ARM10･ARM11. This family assumes Thumb-2 that is the instruction set of new ARM to be a standard specification, and is a responded lineup in each target application according to the Cortex-M series (ARM7 corresponding) for Low-End, the Cortex-R series (ARM9 corresponding) for Middle-End, and the Cortex-A series (ARM11 or more) for High-End. The adoption including the usage such as the application processors for the cellular phone has already expanded.
ARM core will take the product that responds various applications in the future and various functions and technologies are taken in the direction where the line improves. The product development corresponding to needs from the market is advanced as the release of the product corresponding to TrustZone that is the security technology recently and IEM that dynamically controls power consumption begins.
More information on ARM is available at http://www.jp.arm.com
