ARM ships 10 billionth chip

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]