ARM Holdings

Infobox Company
company_name = ARM Holdings
company_
company_type = Public (lse|ARM, nasdaq|ARMH)
foundation = 1990
location = Cambridge, England, UK
key_people = Doug Dunn (Chairman)
Warren East (CEO)
industry = RISC Microprocessors
products = Processor IP; Physical IP
revenue = £259 million (2007)
operating_income = £86.7 million (2007)
net_income = £36.8 million (2007)
num_employees = 1,728 (December 31 2007)
homepage = [http://www.arm.com www.arm.com]

ARM Holdings (lse|ARM, nasdaq|ARMH) is a technology company headquartered in Cambridge, England, UK. The company is best known for its processors, although it also designs, licenses and sells software development tools under the RealView and KEIL brands, systems and platforms, system-on-a-chip infrastructure and software. It is probably the best-known of the Silicon Fen companies.

The company was founded as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer and VLSI Technology (as Advanced RISC Machines), intended to further the development of the Acorn RISC Machine's RISC chip, which was originally used in the Acorn Archimedes and is now the processing core for many custom application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

The company is considered to be market dominant in the field of mobile phone chips. [ [http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/NEA/archive/200204/177680/ [Cover Story ARM CPU Core Dominates Mobile Market - Nikkei Electronics Asia - Tech-On! ] ]

History

The Company's history can be summarised as follows: [ [http://www.arm.com/aboutarm/milestones.html ARM milestones] , ARM company website, accessed February 5 2008]

*In 1990 ARM was founded as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer and VLSI Technology.

*In 1993 First profitable year

*In 1994 Silicon Valley and Tokyo offices open

*In 1998 Advanced RISC Machines Ltd name is changed to ARM Ltd, 50 million cores a year shipped.

*In 1998 ARM IPO on both LSE & NASDAQ

*In 1999 ARM acquired Micrologic Solutions, a software consulting company based in Cambridge, UK

*In 2000 ARM acquired Allant Software, a developer of debugging software; Infinite Designs, a design company based in Sheffield, UK and EuroMIPS a smart card design house in Sophia Antipolis, France

*In 2001, ARM acquired the engineering team of Noral Micrologics, a debug hardware and software company based in Blackburn, UK.

*In 2002, Artisan Components acquired NurLogic Design a PHY and analogue mixed signal company based in San Diego, CA. China office is opened.

*In 2003, ARM acquired Adelante Technologies of Belgium, creating its OptimoDE data engines business, a form of lightweight DSP engine.

*In 2004, ARM acquired Axys Design Automation, a developer of ESL design tools; and Artisan Components, a designer of "Physical IP" (standard cell libraries, Memory Compilers, PHYs etc.), the building blocks of integrated circuits.

*In 2005, ARM acquired KEIL Software, a leading developer of software development tools for the microcontroller market, including 8051 and C16x platforms. [ [http://www.microcontroller.com/news/arm_keil.asp ARM Purchases Keil Software] ] ARM also acquired the engineering team of PowerEscape.

*In 2006, ARM acquired Falanx, a developer of 3D graphics accelerators, and SOISIC, who specialise in developing silicon-on-insulator physical IP.

Operations

The company has offices and design centres across the world, including Sunnyvale, California; Austin, Texas; Olympia, Washington; Trondheim, Norway; Sophia Antipolis, France; Munich, Germany; Leuven, Belgium; Taiwan; Shin Yokohama, Japan; China; India; and Slovenia [ [http://www.arm.com/contact_us/offices.html ARM offices] , ARM company website, accessed February 5 2008] .

A characteristic feature of ARM processors is their low electric power consumption, which makes them particularly suitable for use in portable devices [ [http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ ARM Processor Overview] , ARM company website, accessed February 5 2008] . In fact, almost all modern mobile phones and personal digital assistants contain ARM CPUs, making them the most widely-used 32-bit microprocessor family in the world. Today ARMs account for over 75% of all 32-bit embedded CPUs. [ [http://www.arm.com/miscPDFs/3823.pdf Product Backgrounder] ]

ARM processors are used as the main CPU for most mobile phones, including those manufactured by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung [ [http://www.symbian.com/partner/platinum/directory/arm.html "ARM is the market-leading architecture in mobile devices worldwide, with 80% of all handsets containing at least one ARM core."] , Symbian website, accessed February 5 2008] ; many personal digital assistants and handhelds, like the Apple iPod & iPhone [ [http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-powered-by-samsung-not-intel/ iPhone powered by Samsung, not Intel?] , engadget, January 11 2007] , Nintendo Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, Gamepark GP32, and Gamepark Holdings GP2X; as well as many other applications, including GPS, digital cameras, digital televisions, network devices and storage [ [http://www.arm.com/markets/home_solutions/app.html ARM powered products] ] . The WLAN processor of Sony's Playstation Portable is an ARM9 [ [http://www.arm.com/markets/home_solutions/armpp/8732.html Sony PlayStation Portable - PSP] ]

Unlike other microprocessor corporations such as AMD, Intel, Freescale (formerly Motorola) and Renesas (formerly Hitachi and Mitsubishi) [ [http://www.arm.com/products/licensing/licencees.html Processor Licensees] , ARM company website, accessed February 5 2008] , ARM only licenses its technology as intellectual property (IP), rather than manufacturing its own CPUs. Thus, there are a few dozen companies making processors based on ARM's designs. Intel, Freescale and Renesas have all licensed ARM technology. In 2007, 2.9 billion chips based on an ARM design were manufactured [ [http://www.arm.com/news/19813.html "For the reported year, ARM partners shipped just under 3 billion units (2.9bn)"] , ARM press release, February 5 2008] .

Company name

The acronym ARM originally stood for Acorn RISC Machine. The company name ARM stands for Advanced RISC Machines. This name was changed, around the time of the IPO, to "ARM Holdings", since it was felt the term RISC, which indicates a type of CPU design, being phonetically identical to risk, would deter people unfamiliar with computers.

ee also

*ARM architecture

References

External links

* [http://www.arm.com Official site]
* [http://www.arm.com/aboutarm/ About ARM from the company website]
* [http://www.gnuarm.org Useful information regarding GNU tools for ARM]
* [http://www.timesys.com/processor/arm.htm Embedded Linux for ARM processors]
* [http://www.devicetools.com/Architecture/ARM/index.html Tools and Resources for ARM]
* [http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/directory/orgprofile/jobs/default.aspx?objid=4687 ARM is a Founder Member of the Cambridge Network and regularly posts job vacancies in the Cambridge Region here]