Over 250 billion Arm chips have shipped since the first ARM1 processor launched 40 years ago

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Promised 'MIPS for the Masses' then delivered.

40 years since the ARM1 was introduced
(Image credit: Arm)

The first Arm processor was created in Cambridge in 1985. From humble origins and with limited resources, the ARM1 was designed to power the new Acorn Archimedes computer systems. The ARM1 featured 6,000 gates, while modern Arm processors feature more than 100 million. Similarly, the popularity of the "exceptionally power-efficient" Arm architecture has scaled incredible heights. At the latest count there have been more than 250 billion Arm chips shipped, in devices spanning sensors, and smartphones, to datacenters and beyond.

(Image credit: Arm)
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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • King_V
    More than 250 billion Arm chips have shipped, by the latest count, while the world's population is approximately 110 billion. In its anniversary blog post, Arm takes the mathematical opportunity to quip that "there are literally more ARMs than arms in the world."

    Oh, no. No no no. The world's population is approximately 8 billion, NOT 110 billion! That is off by about a factor of 14, and it would be a disaster well before getting even close to 110 billion living on earth concurrently.

    I think that 110 billion number is the total number of people who have ever lived on earth, past and present combined. Fair to say that there's more ARMs than there have ever been human arms in the world.
    Reply
  • ezst036
    King_V said:
    Oh, no. No no no. The world's population is approximately 8 billion, NOT 110 billion! That is off by about a factor of 14, and it would be a disaster well before getting even close to 110 billion living on earth concurrently.

    I think that 110 billion number is the total number of people who have ever lived on earth, past and present combined. Fair to say that there's more ARMs than there have ever been human arms in the world.
    I took that to mean population of CPUs, not population of humans.

    Between servers, routers, cellphones, potential industrial/embedded applications, Macs, gaming devices/game consoles, and a whole host of other devices, ARM could very well have a population of 110 billion.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    I had to fact-check that headline, because language around chips vs. cores can sometimes get squirrely.

    What ARM said is quite interesting:
    "Today, Arm technology is licensed by hundreds of companies and found in over 300 billion chips –... more than 250 billion Arm cores have been shipped"Huh. So, I guess "Arm technology" covers IP like iGPUs? But, I think iGPUs aren't where the added volume is coming from. I suspect it might have more to do with things like patents they own, which are part of a licensing pool for standards like LPDDR. Although, that specific example seems quite a stretch, if it's really how they reach 300 B.

    Basically, modern phone SoCs tend to have 8 or so cores, while modern ARM server CPUs have 72 and up (Nvidia Grace, Microsoft Cobalt 100, Google Axion). Amazon's Graviton 4 has 96, while AmpereOne tops out at 192, IIRC. So, that should be dramatically increasing the number of "cores shipped", relative to the chips count. I would've expected a 10:1 ratio of core-to-chips, so like 250B cores and 25B chips. This makes the 300B claim even more intriguing.

    The article said:
    no empire is too big to fall.
    This was a cute turn of phrase, considering it's a British company. Should stoke their insecurities, I expect.

    The article said:
    Arm needs to be acutely aware of open-source movements like RISC-V
    Toms is never going to get this right. At this point, the fact they keep saying "open source", rather than "open standard" almost feels like trolling. I get that they simply don't care about the distinction, but some people do and I'm sure they're well aware of that.

    Missed opportunity: the article could've mentioned how Arm is pivoting from an IP-only business model to selling actual silicon.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    bit_user said:
    I had to fact-check that headline, because language around chips vs. cores can sometimes get squirrely.

    What ARM said is quite interesting:
    "Today, Arm technology is licensed by hundreds of companies and found in over 300 billion chips –... more than 250 billion Arm cores have been shipped"Huh. So, I guess "Arm technology" covers IP like iGPUs? But, I think iGPUs aren't where the added volume is coming from. I suspect it might have more to do with things like patents they own, which are part of a licensing pool for standards like LPDDR. Although, that specific example seems quite a stretch, if it's really how they reach 300 B.
    Probably the distinction they make between the cores they license verbatim versus the ones that big companies make custom for their own use case.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    TerryLaze said:
    Probably the distinction they make between the cores they license verbatim versus the ones that big companies make custom for their own use case.
    Could be, but since their goal is to inflate their numbers as much as possible, I'd expect them to use the most broad definition of "ARM core" (i.e. to mean anything that natively executes an ARM ISA).
    Reply
  • lo_mein
    “and the newly energized Chinese tech firms in the not too distant future.”
    this is because Arm China and Arm are no longer the same after the takeover of our ip
    Reply
  • newtechldtech
    ezst036 said:
    I took that to mean population of CPUs, not population of humans.

    Between servers, routers, cellphones, potential industrial/embedded applications, Macs, gaming devices/game consoles, and a whole host of other devices, ARM could very well have a population of 110 billion.
    Still , this number is huge and I dont believe it . fun fact : each ARM CPU has around 0.1 to 0.2 grams Gold , for 110 billions you do the math for GOLD...
    Reply
  • bit_user
    newtechldtech said:
    Still , this number is huge and I dont believe it . fun fact : each ARM CPU has around 0.1 to 0.2 grams Gold , for 110 billions you do the math for GOLD...
    I'm pretty sure you only find gold on the contacts of socketed CPUs. The vast majority of these would be soldered, hence no need for gold.

    It also matters quite a lot how many pins or pads the socket has.
    Reply
  • King_V
    newtechldtech said:
    Still , this number is huge and I dont believe it . fun fact : each ARM CPU has around 0.1 to 0.2 grams Gold , for 110 billions you do the math for GOLD...
    https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/e/e2/Goldmember.jpeg
    Reply