ARM recently announced that the total number of processors shipped by its Partners has exceeded ten billion. The company developed its first embeddable RISC core, the ARM6 processor, in 1991, and its semiconductor Partners currently ship almost three billion ARM Powered processors each year.
“ARM Partners have now shipped more than one processor for every single person on the planet” said Warren East, CEO, ARM. “Ten billion ARM processors in use mark an enormous milestone for ARM, but also demonstrate the growth in adoption of the ARM® processor architecture by the vast majority of major electronics companies and across the broadest range of applications.”
ARM has grown to become the largest microprocessor IP company in the world, and the ARM processor portfolio covers every area of microprocessor applications, from very low-cost embedded microcontrollers, up to very high-performance multicore processors for demanding networking, mobile and consumer entertainment applications. As a result, ARM processors can be found in products ranging from the LG Viewty, Nokia N95 and Sony Ericsson P1i smart phones; the iPhone and the iPod; Garmin, Navman and Tom Tom portable navigation systems; Kodak still cameras; Sony video cameras; and the Nintendo DS handheld gaming device, up to Toshiba HD digital televisions; hard disk drives from Samsung and Seagate; automotive braking systems from Bosch; HP printers and wireless routers from Linksys and Netgear. (For more examples of ARM Powered products, visit http://www.arm.com/markets.For a full list of public ARM processor licensees, vivit http://www.arm.com/products/licensing/licensees.html)
“ARM deserves congratulations for successfully executing the business model of licensing microprocessor technology as intellectual property,” said Tom R. Halfhill, senior analyst for In-Stat’s Microprocessor Report newsletter. “Although ARM does not actually make or sell microprocessor chips, there are now ten billion ARM microprocessors in the world - all implemented in silicon by ARM Partners. ARM was an early pioneer of this revolutionary business model, and it has given ARM a long reach in the digital world.”
“ARM’s success is a result of its processor architecture being licensed to nearly every semiconductor company in the world,” said Tom Starnes of analyst firm Objective Analysis. “With each vendor using ARM processors to address its own focus markets, the number of ARM technology-based chips going out the door multiplies beyond what a single vendor could drive. Added to the volume of mobile phones with ARM technology inside and untapped markets like microcontrollers just getting started, these numbers will continue to expand. At this rate, within a year we will find that every man, woman, and child on this planet will have the use of an average of two ARM processors – and a lot of cool electronic devices too.”
