Product Code Database
Arm Holdings plc (formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn Computers) is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England, whose primary business is the design of central processing unit (CPU) cores that implement the ARM architecture family of instruction sets. It also designs other chips, provides software development tools under the DS-5, RealView and Keil brands, and provides systems and platforms, system-on-a-chip (SoC) infrastructure and software. As a Holding company, it also holds shares of other companies. Since 2016, it has been majority owned by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group.
While ARM CPUs first appeared in the Acorn Archimedes, a desktop computer, today's systems include mostly , including ARM CPUs used in virtually all modern . Processors based on designs licensed from Arm, or designed by licensees of one of the ARM instruction set architectures, are used in all classes of computing devices. Arm has two lines of graphics processing units (GPUs), Mali, and the newer Immortalis (which includes hardware-based ray-tracing).
Arm's main CPU competitors in servers include IBM, Intel and AMD. Intel competed with ARM-based chips in mobile devices but Arm no longer has any competition in that space (although vendors of actual ARM-based chips compete within that arena). Arm's main GPU competitors include mobile GPUs from technology companies Imagination Technologies (PowerVR), Qualcomm (Adreno), and increasingly Nvidia, AMD, Samsung and Intel. While competing in GPUs, Qualcomm, Samsung and Nvidia all have combined their GPUs with Arm-licensed CPUs.
Arm had a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It also had a secondary listing of American depositary receipts on New York's Nasdaq. However, Japanese multinational conglomerate SoftBank Group made an agreed offer for Arm on 18 July 2016, subject to approval by Arm's shareholders, valuing the company at £24.3 billion. The transaction was completed on 5 September 2016. A planned takeover deal by Nvidia, announced in 2020, collapsed in February 2022, with SoftBank subsequently deciding to pursue an initial public offering on the Nasdaq in 2023, valuing Arm at billion.
On 1 August 2017, the styling and logo were changed. The logo is now all lowercase ('arm') and other uses of the name are in sentence case ('Arm').
In 2010, ARM joined with IBM, Texas Instruments, Samsung, ST-Ericsson (since dissolved) and Freescale Semiconductor (now NXP Semiconductors) in forming a non-profit open source engineering company, Linaro.
In 2017, a 25% stake of Arm was transferred to the SoftBank Vision Fund, which received investment from the Saudi sovereign fund.
Arm filed for an IPO on 21 August 2023 on the Nasdaq, rather than the LSE. A few days earlier, SoftBank Group bought back the 25% stake from Vision Fund for around $16 billion, valuing Arm at over $64 billion. Arm went public on 14 September 2023 raising $4.87 billion at a $54.5 billion valuation, with SoftBank continuing to own roughly 90% of the company following the offering.
In September 2021, despite Arm's denial, reports stated that the chief executive of Arm China, whom the British parent had tried to dismiss, had publicly declared the "independence" of Arm China. In February 2022, Allen Wu, the CEO of Arm China, floated the idea of a public offering of the Chinese subsidiary in 2025.
On 29 April 2022, it was reported that the CEO and legal representative of Arm China had finally been replaced according to legally recognized filings. However, Allen Wu continued to dispute this. Subsequently, in 2023, key staff left to form their own chip design startup Borui Jingxin, which competes with Arm China, particularly for engineers.
Arm processors are used as the main CPU for most mobile phones many PDAs and , like the Apple iPod and iPad, and computer games and as well as many other applications, including GPS navigation devices, and .
The supercomputer maker Cray has added an "ARM Option" (i.e. CPU blade server option, using Cavium ThunderX2) to their XC50 supercomputers, and Cray claims that ARM is "a third processor architecture for building next-generation supercomputers", for clients such as the United States Department of Energy.
Fujitsu (the supercomputer maker of June 2011 world's fastest K computer according to TOP500) announced at the International Supercomputing Conference in June 2016 that its future exascale supercomputer will feature processors of its own design that implement the ARMv8 architecture, rather than the SPARC processors used in earlier supercomputers. These processors will also implement extensions to the ARMv8 architecture equivalent to HPC-ACE2 that Fujitsu is developing with ARM Holdings.
The Cray XC50-series supercomputer for the University of Bristol is called Isambard, named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The supercomputer is expected to feature around 160 nodes, each with two 32-core ThunderX2 processors running at 2.1 GHz. Peak theoretical performance of the 10,240 cores and 40,960 threads is 172 teraFLOPS.
The Vanguard project by Sandia National Laboratories is to deliver an exascale ARM machine. The first generation called Hammer was based on X-Gene by Applied Micro. The second generation called Sullivan was based Cavium's ThunderXs processors. The third generation called Mayer was based on pre-production ThunderX2. The fourth generation also based on ThunderX2 is called Astra and was slated to become operational by November 2018.
It also has two lines of graphics processing units (GPUs): Mali, and the newer Immortalis (with hardware-based ray-tracing). In addition, it offers Ethos neural processing units (NPUs), Corelink/CoreSight System/SoC IP, and TrustZone/CryptoCell/SecurCore Security IP.
Arm offers several microprocessor core designs that have been "publicly licensed" for its newer "application processors" (non-microcontroller) used in such applications as smartphones and tablets.
Cores for ARMv8.2-A include the Cortex-A77, Cortex-A65AE, Cortex-A76, Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55. Cores for ARMv8-A include the Cortex-A73, Cortex-A72, Cortex-A32, Cortex-A35, Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53. ARM's client roadmap includes Hercules in 2020 and Matterhorn in 2021.
Cores for 32-bit architectures include Cortex-A32, Cortex-A15, Cortex-A12, Cortex-A17, Cortex-A9, Cortex-A8, Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A5, and older "Classic ARM Processors", as well as variant architectures for microcontrollers that include these cores: Cortex-R7, Cortex R5, Cortex-R4, Cortex-M35P, Cortex-M33, Cortex-M23 Cortex-M7, Cortex-M4, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M1, Cortex-M0+, and Cortex-M0 for licensing.
In February 2016, Arm announced the Built on Arm Cortex Technology licence often shortened to Built on Cortex (BoC) licence. This licence allows companies to partner with Arm and make modifications to Arm Cortex designs. These design modifications will not be shared with other companies. These semi-custom core designs also have brand freedom, for example Kryo 280.
In addition to licences for their core designs and BoC licence, Arm offers an "architectural licence" for their instruction set architectures, allowing the licensees to design their own cores that implement one of those instruction sets. An Arm architectural licence is more costly than a regular Arm core licence.
The Financial Times reported in March 2023 that Arm had planned to charge the licensees royalties based on the value of the device, instead of the prior model based on the chip's value.
Systems, including iPhone smartphones, frequently include many chips, from many different providers, that include one or more licensed Arm cores, in addition to those in the main Arm-based processor. Arm's core designs are also used in chips that support many common network-related technologies in smartphones: Bluetooth, WiFi and broadband, in addition to corresponding equipment such as Bluetooth headsets, 802.11ac routers, and network providers' cellular LTE.
In May 2013, president Simon Segars took over as CEO.
In March 2014, former Rexam chairman Stuart Chambers succeeded John Buchanan as chairman. Chambers, a non-executive director of Tesco and former chief executive of Nippon Sheet Glass Group, had previously worked at Mars and Royal Dutch Shell.
On 8 February 2022, Rene Haas succeeded Segars as CEO with immediate effect, with Segars leaving Arm.
Licensees
Companies often license these designs from Arm to manufacture and integrate into their own System on chip (SoC) with other components such as GPUs (sometimes Arm's Mali) or modem/radio basebands (for mobile phones). Arm offers multiple licensing programs for their cores. Arm also offers Artisan POP IP, where Arm partners with foundries to provide physical implementation, which allows faster time to market.
Uses of Arm technology
Processors based on designs licensed from Arm, or designed by licensees of one of the ARM instruction set architectures, are used in all classes of computing devices (including in space). Processors designed by Arm or by Arm licensees are used as in , including real-time safety systems (cars' ABS), biometrics systems (fingerprint sensor (2025). 9781479921027 ISBN 9781479921027), (e.g. Android TV), all modern (such as Qualcomm Toq), and are used as general-purpose processors in smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computer (even for running traditional x86 Microsoft Windows programs), servers and supercomputers/HPC,
Partnerships
University of Michigan
In 2011, Arm renewed a five-year, US$5 million research partnership with University of Michigan, which extended their existing research partnership to 2015. This partnership would focus on ultra-low energy and Green computing.Peter Clarke, EE Times. " ARM extends Michigan research deal." 31 August 2011. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
Arduino
In October 2017, Arduino announced its partnership with ARM. The announcement said, in part, "ARM recognized independence as a core value of Arduino ... without any lock-in with the ARM architecture." Arduino intends to continue to work with all technology vendors and architectures.
Intel
In October 2018, ARM Holdings partnered with Intel in order to share code for embedded systems through the Yocto Project. On 12 April 2023, ARM Holdings partnered with Intel Foundry Services to bring Arm SoCs to Intel's 18A process.
Mbed OS and Pelion
On 20 October 2018, Arm unveiled Mbed, an open source operating system for IoT. On 8 October 2019, Arm announced a new Partner Governance model for partners to collaborate on the future roadmap. Partners include: Analog Devices, Cypress, Maxim Integrated, Nuvoton, NXP, Renesas, Realtek, Samsung, Silicon Labs and u-blox. In November 2020, Arm spun out the entire IoT software division as Pelion, a separate but wholly owned subsidiary of Arm. In October 2022 the IoT services of Pelion were purchased by Izuma Networks, an Austin, Texas based startup.
Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium (AVCC)
On 8 October 2019, Arm announced the Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium (AVCC) to collaborate and accelerate development of . Members include Arm, Bosch, Continental AG, Denso, General Motors, Nvidia, NXP and Toyota.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
In August 2020, Arm signed a three-year agreement with DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, enabling DARPA researchers to use all of Arm's commercially available technology.
Senior management
In October 2001, Warren East was appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of Arm Holdings. In the 2011 financial year, East received a total compensation of £1,187,500 from ARM, comprising a salary of £475,000 and a bonus of £712,500.
Current leadership
List of former chairpersons
List of former chief executives
See also
External links
Categories: Official Website, 1990 Establishments In England, 1998 Initial Public Offerings, 2016 Mergers And Acquisitions, 2023 Initial Public Offerings, Acorn Computers, Apple Inc. Partnerships, Technology Companies Based In Cambridge, Manufacturing Companies Based In Cambridge, Computer Companies Of The United Kingdom, Electronics Companies Established In 1990, British Companies Established In 1990, Companies Listed On The Nasdaq, Companies Formerly Listed On The London Stock Exchange, Semiconductor Companies Of The United Kingdom, Fabless Semiconductor Companies, Hsa Foundation Founding Members, Softbank Portfolio Companies, Multinational Joint-venture Companies, British Subsidiaries Of Foreign Companies
|
|
