ARM chips

ARM chips

A very popular family of RISC-based microprocessors and microcontrollers from ARM Inc., Cambridge, England (www.arm.com). The company was founded as Advanced RISC Machines in 1990 by Acorn Computers, Apple and VLSI Technology.

ARM chips are medium to high-speed CPUs that are known for their small die size and low power requirements. Manufactured under license by more than a dozen semiconductor companies, ARM chips are used in smartphones, games, e-book readers, tablets, netbooks, TVs and myriad other consumer and industrial products. In 2010, ARM's CEO stated that licensees of the company sell approximately four billion ARM chips a year.

ARM, Cortex and SecurCore
ARM processor families are designated by the prefix "ARM" and a digit, such as ARM7, ARM9 and ARM11 or with names such as Cortex and SecurCore, the latter used for secure identification products such as smart cards.

StrongARM
The StrongARM was a high-speed version of the ARM chip that was jointly developed with and for Digital Equipment Corporation. The SA-100, the first StrongARM chip, was delivered in 1995, and Intel acquired the technology from Digital in 1997. See StrongARM and Thumb.