Who makes ARM ?

[enewmen]

This may be a dumb question. But who makes ARM CPUs?
I know of ARM Holdings in Cambridge, but they are about licenses and tools.
If ARM is in most of the phones and embedded devices, then it must be a HUGE company.
Big enough to flood Intel.

thanks!

 

[homefellas87]

ARM based chip designs are used in the iPhone, iPad and also by many others in smartphone and mobile hardware.

However, it makes no sense for Apple to invest $8bn in buying ARM because it would not gain anything. It already has the rights to use ARM designs and to customize them for its own uses.

 

[enzo matrix]

ARM does not make CPUs. They sell licenses for others to build and sell CPUs of their design and architecture. For example, Nvidia (tegra, tegra 2, tegra 3). Logically, nVidia would use TSMC to actually manufacture the parts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC
^In this article you will also notice a few other ARM licensees

A google search for "ARM licensees" leads me to this listing:
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/licensees.php

Obviously, there is a lot more research that could be done in the matter. Above is a drop in the bucket example.

 

[enewmen]

Best answer selected by enewmen.

 

[ArthurP_45]

Good Morning,
ARM ltd, is the name of the company in Cambridge (UK) who are manufacturing the ARM processor. It is also manufactured under license.

Acorn Computers launched in the late 1970's, producing machines based upon the MOS 6502 processor, and produced the BBC Micro computer that became the mainstay of the British education system for many years in its various flavours. In the early 1980's with the success of the BBC Micro Acorn were investigating the feasibility of producing its own processors, when their engineers read documents surrounding the Berkeley RISC project and come to the opinions that they could create an updated version of the 6502 without the need to establish costly R&D facilities.

The initial design of the ARM processor was in fact engineered upon a BBC Micro (Model B) with a second 6502 processor installed, and the instruction set written in BBC BASIC.

1983 the Acorn RISC Machine project was launched, as a subsiduary of Acorn Computers, and VLSI Tech was chosen as the silicon partner because they already supplied AC with customised chips and ROMs.

The first ARM was manufactured in April 1985, but full production of the ARM2 began in early 1986. The ARM1 was a simplistic 32-bit processor in that it only had 30,000 transistors, featuring a 32-bit data bus, a 26-bit address space and 27 32-bit registers, with the program code laying within the first 64Mbyte of memory; this was due to the program counter being limited to 24-bits as the top 6 and bottom 2 bits of the 32-bit register serving as control flags. Sadly due the slow advances in technology, ARM were ahead of their time and, the ARM processor had to be hardwired to serve as an 8-bit processor.

The Acorn Archimedes becoming the first ARM based computer.

Such was the secrecy surrounding the Acorn RISC Machine CPU in 1985 Olivetti were not told about its existence until after the negotiations had completed into them buying a controlling stake in Acorn Computers.

During the late 1980's Apple Computer & VLSI Tech began collaborating with Acorn upon newer versions of the ARM core. In 1990 the work upon the ARM CPU was considered so important that Acorn launched Advanced RISC Machines as a seperate company. The name changed to ARM Ltd when its parent company ARM Holdings plc launched upon the London Stock Exchange & the NASDAQ.

In 1992 the ARM6 CPU was launched, and incorporated into the new Apple PDA (Newton) under the title ARM610, with Acorn using the processor in their RISC machines.

Digital Equipment Corporation licenses the ARM6 processor, and produced the StrongARM CPU. Running at 233MHz, and drawing less than a single watt this CPU was ahead of its time. Sadly due to legal action DEC passed the work to Intel as part of their settlement. Intel siezed the chance to replace their aging i960 series processors with the StrongARM, and further developed the processor into XScale.

In an ironic twist of fate, and watching the table turn, ARM is now outselling Intel with an estimated 95% share of 95% in the mobile phone, 10% mobile computers, 35% share in set-top box markets. Today however, ARM do not produce processors for the desktop, or server market. But again in January 2011, Microsoft announced that Windows 8 will run upon ARM processors.

Not too bad for a small British company, with a big attitude.

 

[ArthurP_45]

Good Morning,
ARM ltd, is the name of the company in Cambridge (UK) who are manufacturing the ARM processor. It is also manufactured under license.

Acorn Computers launched in the late 1970's, producing machines based upon the MOS 6502 processor, and produced the BBC Micro computer that became the mainstay of the British education system for many years in its various flavours. In the early 1980's with the success of the BBC Micro Acorn were investigating the feasibility of producing its own processors, when their engineers read documents surrounding the Berkeley RISC project and come to the opinions that they could create an updated version of the 6502 without the need to establish costly R&D facilities.

The initial design of the ARM processor was in fact engineered upon a BBC Micro (Model B) with a second 6502 processor installed, and the instruction set written in BBC BASIC.

1983 the Acorn RISC Machine project was launched, as a subsiduary of Acorn Computers, and VLSI Tech was chosen as the silicon partner because they already supplied AC with customised chips and ROMs.

The first ARM was manufactured in April 1985, but full production of the ARM2 began in early 1986. The ARM1 was a simplistic 32-bit processor in that it only had 30,000 transistors, featuring a 32-bit data bus, a 26-bit address space and 27 32-bit registers, with the program code laying within the first 64Mbyte of memory; this was due to the program counter being limited to 24-bits as the top 6 and bottom 2 bits of the 32-bit register serving as control flags. Sadly due the slow advances in technology, ARM were ahead of their time and, the ARM processor had to be hardwired to serve as an 8-bit processor.

The Acorn Archimedes becoming the first ARM based computer.

Such was the secrecy surrounding the Acorn RISC Machine CPU in 1985 Olivetti were not told about its existence until after the negotiations had completed into them buying a controlling stake in Acorn Computers.

During the late 1980's Apple Computer & VLSI Tech began collaborating with Acorn upon newer versions of the ARM core. In 1990 the work upon the ARM CPU was considered so important that Acorn launched Advanced RISC Machines as a seperate company. The name changed to ARM Ltd when its parent company ARM Holdings plc launched upon the London Stock Exchange & the NASDAQ.

In 1992 the ARM6 CPU was launched, and incorporated into the new Apple PDA (Newton) under the title ARM610, with Acorn using the processor in their RISC machines.

Digital Equipment Corporation licenses the ARM6 processor, and produced the StrongARM CPU. Running at 233MHz, and drawing less than a single watt this CPU was ahead of its time. Sadly due to legal action DEC passed the work to Intel as part of their settlement. Intel siezed the chance to replace their aging i960 series processors with the StrongARM, and further developed the processor into XScale.

In an ironic twist of fate, and watching the table turn, ARM is now outselling Intel with an estimated 95% share of 95% in the mobile phone, 10% mobile computers, 35% share in set-top box markets. Today however, ARM do not produce processors for the desktop, or server market. But again in January 2011, Microsoft announced that Windows 8 will run upon ARM processors.

Not too bad for a small British company, with a big attitude.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey