Who would have thought? This piece originally slipped by under our radar, but it is a noteworthy piece of information, especially since we now know at least one specific ARM chip that Intel is manufacturing ARM cores in its fabs.
In 2010, Intel was ARM's most significant resource of licensing revenue, but it has been unclear which products Intel is paying licensing fees for.
According to an article published by EETimes, about 7.0 percent of ARM's 2010 revenue - $631.3 million - came from Intel. That amounts to about $44 million in licensing fees. The source of this information is Nomura Equity Research, which, however, did not disclose where this number came from and which products it relates to. Netronome, which uses Intel as a contract foundry for its NFP-6xxx series Flow Processor, recently stated that the chips will integrated an ARMv6-based ARM11 core. Depending on the success of the chips, it is likely that Intel's payments to ARM will be increasing down the road.
According to Nomura, TSMC contributes 5.7 percent to ARM's revenue base, Samsung 5.7 percent, TI 4.6 percent, and NEC 3.5 percent. Interestingly, there is also AMD on the list (2.5 percent) - ahead of Infineon, Apple, Qualcomm, Fujitsu, and UMC.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Douglas Perry was a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering semiconductors, storage technology, quantum computing, and processor power delivery. He has authored several books and is currently an editor for The Oregonian/OregonLive.
