arm

[ärm]

(anatomy)

The upper or superior limb in humans which comprises the upper arm with one bone and the forearm with two bones.

(control systems)

A robot component consiting of an interconnected set of links and powered joints that move and support the wrist socket and end effector.

(electricity)

branch

(engineering acoustics)

tone arm

(geology)

A ridge or a spur that extends from a mountain.

(mathematics)

A side of an angle.

(naval architecture)

The part of an anchor extending from the crown to one of the flukes.

(oceanography)

A long, narrow inlet of water extending from another body of water.

(ordnance)

A combat branch of a military force; specifically, a branch of the U.S. Army, such as the Infantry Armored Cavalry, the primary function of which is combat.

(Often plural) Weapons for use in war.

To supply with arms.

To ready ammunition for detonation, as by removal of safety devices or alignment of the explosive elements in the explosive train of the fuse.

(physics)

The perpendicular distance from the line along which a force is applied to a reference point.

ARM

(processor)

Advanced RISC Machine.

Originally Acorn RISC Machine.

ARM

(company)

Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.

ARM

(publication)

["The Annotated C++ Reference Manual", Margaret A. Ellis and Bjarne Stroustrup, Addison-Wesley, 1990].

ARM

(hardware)

Active Reconfiguring Message.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

ARM

The most widely used microprocessors worldwide. Designed by ARM Holdings plc, Cambridge, England (www.arm.com), the company was founded in 1990 by Acorn Computers, Apple and VLSI Technology. The ARM brand originally stood for Acorn RISC Machine and later Advanced RISC Machine.

In 2016, ARM was acquired by Japan-based Softbank, which agreed to sell the company to NVIDIA in 2020 for $40 billion, pending U.S. and U.K. approval.

ARM chips are 32-bit and 64-bit RISC-based CPUs that are known for their low cost and low power requirements (see RISC). Manufactured under license from ARM by more than a dozen semiconductor companies, billions of ARM-based devices are made every year, including smartphones, tablets, game consoles, e-book readers, netbooks, TVs and myriad other consumer and industrial products.

Very often, an ARM CPU is the processor in a system-on-chip (see SoC). For example, Qualcomm's Snapdragon and NVIDIA's Tegra are ARM-based smartphone and tablet SoCs.

Cortex, SecurCore and StrongARM
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.

The StrongARM was a high-speed version of the ARM chip that was jointly developed with Digital Equipment Corporation. The SA-100, the first StrongARM chip, was delivered in 1995, and Intel acquired the technology from Digital in 1997. See Intel Mac, Apple M1, StrongARM, Thumb and big.LITTLE.

Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Arm

the upper extremity in man consisting of the shoulder, forearm, and hand (carpus, metacarpus, and phalanges of the fingers). The arm is a more developed grasping extremity in man than in man’s ancient ancestors, the Anthropomorphidae.

The transformation from Anthropomorphidae to man was largely promoted by freeing the anterior extremities, or arms, from locomotion and body-support functions and converting them into organs capable of performing work operations. As the arm became adapted to work, its structure substantially changed, becoming sharply distinct from the structure of the anterior extremity of Anthropomorphidae.

The most significant structural changes occurred in the hand. In Anthropomorphidae the hand has an underdeveloped thumb and the remaining fingers are greatly elongated; in contrast, the human hand is characterized by a powerfully developed thumb that is essential in performing all work operations. The remaining fingers of the human hand are significantly shorter than those of Anthropoidea but are nevertheless capable of the most delicate and differentiated movements.

In man’s development, the development of the arm as a work organ occurred simultaneously with the progressive development of the brain.

The body processes in brachiopods, the tentacles in cephalopods, and the mobile or nonmobile rays of echinoderms are sometimes called arms.