ARM ships 10 billionth chip
By Ben Robinson on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 4:25 PM PST In Devices, Hardware, LG, Nokia, Sony Ericsson
ARM (Advanced RISC Machines) have announced that they have shipped their 10 billionth chip – a stat which I find amazing….
These days the chips are providing the processing power for everything from iPod to your Netgear router – but some time ago, the origins of ARM were far more humble.
Anyone in the UK will probably remember the Acorn series of computers, including this veritable bad-boy – the Archimedes (A3010):
Acorns sold pretty well in to Schools back in the day, and I’m sure many of you will remember using them (not to be confused with RM – Research Machines). Well things have come on a bit since then, and now you would find ARM chips in numerous mobile devices – recent examples of which being the LG Viewty, Nokia N95, and Sony Ericsson P1i – oh, and this not very well know device, called an iPhone?!
Crucially though, ARM doesn’t manufacture the chips itself (can you imagine the size of a facility that was shipping 3bn chips per year?) – it licenses it’s technology.
One of those rare instances of a company you may not have heard of, making a massive impact on the world of Mobile devices – chances are you probably own a device (or more than one) with an ARM chip in it – amazing!
[Via: Tech.co.uk]
