Digital and ARM Announce Agreement to Develop
High-Speed, Low-Power, ARM-Compliant Processors
... World's Performance Leader Teams with Power-Efficiency Leader
Maynard MA and Cambridge UK -- February 6, 1995 --
Digital Equipment Corporation and Advanced RISC Machines Ltd (ARM)
today announced the licensing of the ARM RISC architecture to
Digital Semiconductor for the development of high-performance,
low power microprocessors. The StrongARM family of 32-bit RISC
products to be developed under the agreement is intended to
complement and broaden the existing ARM product line for
performance critical applications such as:
- next-generation personal digital assistants (PDAs) with
improved user interfaces and communications,
- interactive TV and set-top products,
- video games and multimedia 'edutainment' systems with
realistic imaging, motion and sound, and
- digital imaging, including low cost digital image capture
and photo-quality scanning and printing.
Combining Digital's proven leadership in high performance
microprocessor design and manufacture with ARM's expertise in low
power design, will result in processors that set a new standard
for high performance while meeting the low power, space and cost
requirements of products such as handheld devices. The StrongARM
family will offer full software compatibility with the ARM6, 7
and 8 chip families, which will help accelerate market acceptance
of the new products.
Strengthens Merchant Vendor and Performance Commitment
For Digital Semiconductor, this is a strategic agreement that both
reinforces our merchant vendor role and demonstrates performance
leadership, said Ed Caldwell, vice president and general manager of
Digital Semiconductor. "Today, our Alpha products provide unmatched
performance for desktop and server applications. The StrongARM
product line will complement this strategy with its focus on
enhancing performance for mass-market applications in which very
low power dissipation is critical."
"This agreement with ARM also gives us early entry into rapidly
growing, high volume markets" Caldwell added. Industry analysts
estimate that the market for 32-bit RISC embedded consumer
applications will grow 75 percent year over year to more than
10.5 million in 1998 (InStat October 1994).
Performance is Key
According to Robin Saxby, Managing Director & CEO of ARM: "Having
Digital Semiconductor jointly design and build new processors
compliant with the ARM architecture will add momentum to ARM's
acceptance as the volume RISC standard for 32-bit applications.
ARM processors already have the best ratios of performance to power
consumption and cost (MIPS/Watt and MIPS/$). The agreement with
Digital will maintain our lead in these areas while allowing us to
pursue applications demanding very high absolute performance."
Shane Robison, vice president and general manager of Apple Computer,
Inc's Personal Interactive Electronics Division, said Apple was an
early adopter of ARM microprocessor technology and had incorporated
the ARM 610 processor into its market-leading Newton MessagePad PDA.
"Apple's Newton engineering team has been working closely with
Digital Semiconductor and ARM in defining the first StrongARM
microprocessor. This design looks to significantly boost compute
performance while retaining the low power characteristic of ARM
microprocessors, both of which are critical in designing high
performance PDAs."
Sam Wauchope, the Acorn Computer Group Managing Director commented
that "Acorn was the first personal computer manufacturer to move to
RISC in 1987 after it developed the original ARM processor. The
announcement of StrongARM ensures that our powerful, low-cost
multimedia workstations for education, the home and professional
use will continue to have the leading performance to deliver to our
customers the innovative solutions they are demanding."
The Chief Executive of interactive TV set-top box designer Online
Media, Malcolm Bird, said "The ARM processor was the obvious choice
for our digital set-top products. The new StrongARM devices will
offer exciting new possibilities for performance and in
hardware/software trade-offs. We already have set-top products in
production and will be able to rapidly benefit from the new devices."
"This relationship looks to be a perfect strategic fit," said
Jerry Banks, Director/Principal Analyst, Dataquest. "ARM gains
access to high performance microprocessor design and process
technology, while Digital gains ARM's expertise in low power
design, as well as access to high volume markets with significant
potential. The resulting products could have a far-reaching effect
on many emerging consumer applications like PDAs, interactive TV,
and games."
First product in development today
The first product in the StrongARM family is currently under
development at Digital Semiconductor's Palo Alto, California, and
Austin, Texas, research centres and ARM's Cambridge, UK
headquarters. Digital expects the device to be among the first
products manufactured at its new FAB 6 state-of-the-art chip
fabrication facility in Hudson, Massachusetts. The products
developed under the agreement will be sold through Digital
Semiconductor's sales channels. In addition, processors and
processor cores developed under this agreement will be available
for licensing to other semiconductor partners. Saxby added "This
is consistent with our strategy of making the ARM architecture an
open standard for performance oriented, power-efficient and cost-
effective applications."
*** Ends ***
Editorial Notes:
Advanced RISC Machines Limited (ARM)
ARM designs, licenses and markets fast, low cost, low power
consumption RISC processors for embedded control,
consumer/educational multimedia, DSP and portable applications.
ARM licenses its enabling technology to semiconductor partner
companies, who focus on manufacturing, applications and marketing.
Each partner offers unique ARM related technologies and services,
which together satisfy a wide range of end-user application needs.
ARM also designs and licenses peripherals, supporting software and
hardware tools and offers design services, feasibility studies and
training. This results in a global partnership committed to making
the ARM architecture the volume RISC standard. ARM's partners
include: VLSI Technology, GEC Plessey Semiconductors, Sharp
Corporation, Texas Instruments, Cirrus Logic, Samsung, AKM and
Digital Equipment Corporation. ARM was formed in 1990 by Acorn
Computers, Apple Computer and VLSI Technology with Nippon Investment
and Finance (a Daiwa Securities subsidiary) investing in 1992.
Digital Semiconductor
Digital Semiconductor, a Digital Equipment Corporation business
headquartered in Hudson, Massachusetts, designs, manufactures and
markets semiconductor products including Alpha microprocessors and
PCI-based peripheral chips. PCI products include networking chips,
bridge chips, and graphics/multimedia accelerators that offer
industry leading performance and functionality for all major
platforms, both CISC and RISC. Digital Semiconductor operates
design centres in Hudson, Palo Alto, California; Austin, Texas; and
Jerusalem, Israel. Semiconductor products are manufactured at
facilities in Hudson and South Queensferry, Scotland. Digital
Semiconductor sells its products worldwide through its direct sales
force and semiconductor distribution channels.
Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open
client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated
worldwide information systems. Digital's scalable Alpha platforms,
storage, networking, software and services, together with industry-
focused solutions from business partners, help organisations compete
and win in today's global marketplace.
Digital and the Digital logo are trademarks of Digital Equipment
Corporation.
ARM, StrongARM and the ARM Powered logo are trademarks of Advanced
RISC Machines Ltd.
Apple, the Apple logo and Newton are trademarks of Apple Computer,
Inc.
Further information can be found in the comp.sys.arm newsgroup.
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