The leading customer of processor technology licensor ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England) by revenue contribution in 2010, according to Nomura Equities Research, comes as a bit of a surprise. The financial brokerage and analysis house says it was Intel Corp (Santa Clara, CA).
What!!!
That was my reaction too and it begs the question: what ARM-supplied services, licenses or royalties was Intel paying millions of dollars for in 2010? ARM’s revenue in 2010 was $631.3 million so a 7 percent contribution means that about $44 million flowed from Intel to ARM—according to Nomura.
I am scratching my head to make sense of this. Could it be some hard disk drive controller that Intel makes by the bucket-load includes an ARM core? Or is there some ARM core that has made its way into some dusty, otherwise-forgotten corner of an Intel memory controller or image processing block that has ended up in an Intel microprocessor?
Intel 7.0%
TSMC 5.7%
Samsung 5.7%
TI 4.6%
NEC 3.5%
ST 3.5%
ZTE 2.8%
Broadcom 2.6%
AMD 2.5%
Infineon 2.4%
Apple 2.1%
Qualcomm 2.0%
Fujitsu 1.9%
UMC 1.9%
Lenovo 1.8%
ARM today disclosed technical details of its new ARMv8 architecture, the first ARM architecture to include a 64-bit instruction set. ARMv8 broadens the ARM architecture to embrace 64-bit processing and extends virtual addressing, building on the rich heritage of the 32-bit ARMv7 architecture upon which market leading cores such as the Cortex™-A9 and Cortex-A15 processors are built.
The ARM architecture is unique in its ability to span the full range of electronic devices and equipment, from tiny sensors through to large scale infrastructure equipment. Building on the industry standard 32-bit ARM architecture, the new ARMv8 architecture will expand the reach of ARM processor-based solutions into consumer and enterprise applications where extended virtual addressing and 64-bit data processing are required.
The ARMv8 architecture consists of two main execution states, AArch64 and AArch32. The AArch64 execution state introduces a new instruction set, A64 for 64-bit processing. The AArch32 state supports the existing ARM instruction set. The key features of the current ARMv7 architecture, including TrustZone®, virtualization and NEON™ advanced SIMD, are maintained or extended in the ARMv8 architecture.
“With our increasingly connected world, the market for 32-bit processing continues to expand and evolve creating new opportunities for 32-bit ARMv7 based processors in embedded, real-time and open application platforms.” said Mike Muller, CTO, ARM. “We believe the ARMv8 architecture is ideally suited to enable the ARM partnership to continue to grow in 32-bit application spaces and bring diverse, innovative and energy-efficient solutions to 64-bit processing markets.”
Getting Started with the MCU – THE MUSIC VIDEO! This is for the lpc1768 which is the big daddy to our lpc1343. nxp makes great chips! We just got lpc1343 boards back in stock!
BACK IN STOCK – MicroBuilder LPC1343 (ARM Cortex M3) – v1.6. The LPC1343 is a low-power, 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessor designed specifically for embedded devices. This is a fully assembled version of the LPC1343 Reference Design from talented Parisian designer, Microbuilder. No soldering required (female header pins are pre-soldered onto the board), this devboard is ready to go out of the box.
Please note that while there are some great introductory getting-started tutorials for this board, its best used by those with microcontroller experience. If you’ve played with AVR or PICs and are intrigued by the low cost and ultra fast 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 series, this is the dev board to get! If you’re just getting started with microcontrollers and electronics you should check out the Arduino which is very beginner-friendly.
In addition to publishing the schematics and layout files, MicroBuilder has written a full software library for the LPC1300 family. This allows you to quickly get started with all on-board peripherals, so you can focus on your own application functionality. The software library includes complete GCC-based startup code and details on setting up an ARM development environment using open source tools. Along with a standard Makefile, project files for the open-source CodeLite C/C++ IDE and the commercial GCC-based Crossworks for ARM are provided.
Within minutes, you’ll be using the USB interface for printf() debugging, reading from the analog inputs using analogRead(), tweaking pins without having to look up registers, etc. and best of all no ARM or JTAG programmer is required! The chip comes with a built in USB bootloader that appears as a very small disk drive. To reprogram, simply press the Bootload button and drag your new firmware file into the USB drive that appears. Then press Reset and your code is running. Is that cool or what?
Check it!
Power the board via the 2.1mm DC jack (6-12V) or the mini-B USB connector (5V). There’s an onboard 3.3V regulator (LT1113)
Debugging LED on pin 2.10 and SWD connectors for programming and debugging
Open source toolchain (GPL) and software library (BSD)
USB 2.0 HID and Mass Storage support built right into the ROM
32K of flash, 8K of SRAM…running at 72 MHz
Built-into-ROM USB bootloader works with any computer and OS
Full Speed USB, TTL UART, SPI and I2C interfaces
Up to 42 General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins with configurable pull-up/pull-down resistors
8 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter pins
Four general purpose counter/timers with a total of four capture inputs and 13 match outputs
A Lego Mindstorms robotics kit controlled by an HTC Nexus One smartphone successfully untangled a Rubik’s Cube puzzle in 12.5 seconds at this week’s ARM developer conference in Silicon Valley.
ARM principal engineer David Gilday, who masterminded the robotic Rubik’s Cube demo, told DeviceGuru that the 12.5-second run was the fastest result at the show, but that the average 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube solution in the current setup had been running around 15 seconds.
Today’s gift guide is a guide for friends, family and relatives who want to learn ARM. ARM is a type of chip, a very powerful one and it’s something we’ve taken an interest here at Adafruit. We asked our friend Kevin who makes the MicroBuilder LPC1343 (ARM Cortex M3) board for ideas this holiday season and we also tossed in some of our own. We stock two of the items, you can add them to your Adafruit wishlist! For today only the MicroBuilder LPC1343 (ARM Cortex M3) is 10% off (sorry we are not allowed to discount the Chumby at this time).
The Beagle Board is a low-power, low-cost single-board computer produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key. The Beagle Board was designed with open source development in mind, and as a way of demonstrating the Texas Instrument’s OMAP3530 system-on-a-chip. The board was developed by a small team of TI engineers.
The LPC1343 is a low-power, 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessor designed specifically for embedded devices. This is a fully assembled version of the LPC1343 Reference Design from talented Parisian designer, Microbuilder. No soldering required (female header pins are pre-soldered onto the board), this devboard is ready to go out of the box.
Please note that while there are some great introductory getting-started tutorials for this board, its best used by those with microcontroller experience. If you’ve played with AVR or PICs and are intrigued by the low cost and ultra fast 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 series, this is the dev board to get! If you’re just getting started with microcontrollers and electronics you should check out the Arduino which is very beginner-friendly.
In addition to publishing the schematics and layout files, MicroBuilder has written a full software library for the LPC1300 family. This allows you to quickly get started with all on-board peripherals, so you can focus on your own application functionality. The software library includes complete GCC-based startup code and details on setting up an ARM development environment using open source tools. Along with a standard Makefile, project files for the open-source CodeLite C/C++ IDE and the commercial GCC-based Crossworks for ARM are provided.
Within minutes, you’ll be using the USB interface for printf() debugging, reading from the analog inputs using analogRead(), tweaking pins without having to look up registers, etc. and best of all no ARM or JTAG programmer is required! The chip comes with a built in USB bootloader that appears as a very small disk drive. To reprogram, simply press the Bootload button and drag your new firmware file into the USB drive that appears. Then press Reset and your code is running. Is that cool or what?
Check it!
Power the board via the 2.1mm DC jack (6-12V) or the mini-B USB connector (5V). There’s an onboard 3.3V regulator (LT1113)
Debugging LED on pin 2.10 and SWD connectors for programming and debugging
Open source toolchain (GPL) and software library (BSD)
USB 2.0 HID and Mass Storage support built right into the ROM
32K of flash, 8K of SRAM…running at 72 MHz
Built-into-ROM USB bootloader works with any computer and OS
Full Speed USB, TTL UART, SPI and I2C interfaces
Up to 42 General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins with configurable pull-up/pull-down resistors
8 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter pins
Four general purpose counter/timers with a total of four capture inputs and 13 match outputs
We don’t include a power supply, USB cable or proto-board…but we do toss in some bumpers.
Segger J-Link for ARM (EDU Edition)
This is the Swiss-Army Knife of HW debuggers for ARM, supporting the classic JTAG interface used by ARM7/ARM9 and more importantly the new-and-improved(TM) SWD interface native to all ARM Cortex chips (M0, M3, M4, etc.). If you are a non-commercial user or hobbiest, this is by and far the best deal out there for the most flexible ARM HW debuggers on the market. Supports on-the-go programming of supported ARM chips, step-through-debugging, etc., using all the major IDEs (Keil uVision, IAR, Crossworks for ARM [Windows-only], and also include GDB Server software that can be used on Windows for debugging with GCC and open-source ARM toolchains like Yagarto). At 49€ VAT included in Europe and $60 in North America it’s a no-brainer if your serious about working with ARM.
The Definitive Guide to the ARM Cortex-M3 (2nd Edition)
The go-to book for anyone seriously interested in using one of the many new Cortex M3-based chips that are popping up everywhere. The book is accessible, and also includes a lot of examples aimed at open-source GCC-based toolchains for ARM. Be sure to get the second edition since it has a number of important updates and includes information on the Cortex-M0 (low-cost, low-power) as well.
Saleae Logic
It’s not cheap if you’re just getting started in electronics, but if you really want to do any sort of low-level programming and driver development in C using common serial interfaces like I2C, SPI, etc., the money spent on Saleae’s Logic will be an investment you’ll be glad you
made for years to come. It quickly allows you to capture and analyse digital lines using a remarkably easy-to-use interface, and will save days of frustration when you’re trying to get new sensors or components working. There’s nothing ARM-specific about it … but if you’re going to be writing drivers for custom HW in C, you’ll save yourself a lot of frustration having one of these laying around. Now works for Linux and Mac as well as Windows.
Chumby Hacker Board
While actually programming the 454MHz ARM9-based iMX.233 processor directly in C gets messy pretty quick, the Chumby Hacker Boards takes all the really dreary work off your hands and lets you start developing in the relative comfort of Linux without too much work on your part (other than the inevitable Linux learning curve if you’re new to it). At $90 it’s also a pretty amazing deal (especially compared to the price of the official iMX.233 development board from Freescale!). This is definitely approaching the deep-end of the pool for ARM, but it’s probably a bit more accessible than something like a BeagleBoard. Cheers to Chumby Industries and Bunnie for making this great little board possible and at such a reasonable price.
C Programming Language (Kernighan and Ritchie)
If you’re going to be doing anything with ARM, it will probably be in C (or maybe C++ on the high-end), and the original book is probably still the most accessible. Amidst the thousands of IT and programming books published every years, this one stand out for it’s clarity and emminent readability. If you’re just getting started with C, or need a bit of brushing up, this is probably the best investment you can make both in terms of time and money. (If you just want a quick refresher, O’Reilly’s “C Pocket Reference” is very handy as well in an easy to transport size.
BACK IN STOCK – MicroBuilder LPC1343 (ARM Cortex M3) – v1.6. The LPC1343 is a low-power, 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessor designed specifically for embedded devices. This is a fully assembled version of the LPC1343 Reference Design from talented Parisian designer, Microbuilder. No soldering required (female header pins are pre-soldered onto the board), this devboard is ready to go out of the box.
Please note that while there are some great introductory getting-started tutorials for this board, its best used by those with microcontroller experience. If you’ve played with AVR or PICs and are intrigued by the low cost and ultra fast 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 series, this is the dev board to get! If you’re just getting started with microcontrollers and electronics you should check out the Arduino which is very beginner-friendly.
In addition to publishing the schematics and layout files, MicroBuilder has written a full software library for the LPC1300 family. This allows you to quickly get started with all on-board peripherals, so you can focus on your own application functionality. The software library includes complete GCC-based startup code and details on setting up an ARM development environment using open source tools. Along with a standard Makefile, project files for the open-source CodeLite C/C++ IDE and the commercial GCC-based Crossworks for ARM are provided.
Within minutes, you’ll be using the USB interface for printf() debugging, reading from the analog inputs using analogRead(), tweaking pins without having to look up registers, etc. and best of all no ARM or JTAG programmer is required! The chip comes with a built in USB bootloader that appears as a very small disk drive. To reprogram, simply press the Bootload button and drag your new firmware file into the USB drive that appears. Then press Reset and your code is running. Is that cool or what?
Check it!
Power the board via the 2.1mm DC jack (6-12V) or the mini-B USB connector (5V). There’s an onboard 3.3V regulator (LT1113)
Debugging LED on pin 2.10 and SWD connectors for programming and debugging
Open source toolchain (GPL) and software library (BSD)
USB 2.0 HID and Mass Storage support built right into the ROM
32K of flash, 8K of SRAM…running at 72 MHz
Built-into-ROM USB bootloader works with any computer and OS
Full Speed USB, TTL UART, SPI and I2C interfaces
Up to 42 General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins with configurable pull-up/pull-down resistors
8 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter pins
Four general purpose counter/timers with a total of four capture inputs and 13 match outputs
“awesome rossum” is always pushing the boundaries of size and complexity. Since discovering the cortex M3 series he’s been on a serious tear with a bit-banged color NTSC demo that looks like about 1 square cm. 32 bits @ 72 mhz is the bomb! If you want to check out this series of chips, pick up one of our exceptionally well-designed Microbuilder.eu lpc1343 devboards and start on the tutorials.
At some point in the future, many more everyday objects will have tiny embedded chips that can communicate with networks. But just as we’re debating net neutrality and the value of the open web vs closed client applications, we will have to decide who will control the internet of things, too.
…Free and open-source vs. ready-for-anyone-to-use out-of-the-box: we’ve been down this road many times before. I doubt this argument will have a clear winner and loser, but it’s important that it’s clearly framed and articulated now, before any one approach gets locked-in as the default option.
Called mbed, the research effort puts a kit for a microcontroller – sort of a basic, low-power computer on a chip – in the hands of engineers and hobbyists for about $59. Then, ARM provides a set of software tools for bringing that microcontroller to life and linking it with other interesting items like accelerometers, gyroscopes, cameras, displays and thermometers.
Simon Ford, the ARM researcher leading mbed, said that the package of hardware and software he had created should open microcontrollers up to a new audience by removing some of the technical headaches associated with programming the chips.
The mbed device can plug straight into a U.S.B. port on a computer, appearing as a flash drive to the PC. People can then create programs or download existing modules from the mbed Web site and get off and running in a matter of minutes.
mbed requires an online compiler, so that you are dependent on them forever. You cannot do anything without using their online site. We would like to see mbed change this policy, release some open source hardware, allow OSS toolchains, etc— (they like Arduino shields, why not join in the community? It could be awesome!)
We like the hardware in the mbed, the cortex series is great (it’s why we carry an ARM Cortex M3 board now) – but the ARM complier used with mbed costs about $5,000 so maybe it will never be anywhere but online. This is why we really like the ARM dev board we carry, it’s OSHW, the firmware libraries are all BSD licensed, you can use an OSS tool chain and like the mbed you can drag and drop a compiled program. We’re also considering carrying a lpc1768 version of the board (let us know if you’d like that!)
mbed will be at the Open Source Hardware summit & Maker Faire, we’ll see if they’re up for this – post your comments / suggestions in the comments and we’ll pass them along as well.
Update: Great comments brewing! Jump in!!
William writes:
I really like the mBed, on spec. I will never use it because of their online policy. It’s great for ease, but bad for someone who doesn’t have internet access all the time. What if I need to debug onsite and I’m out in the field? At any rate, if you carry a board with the lpc1768, that would be great. I like the peripherals, USB, Ethernet, SPI, I2C, all in one tidy little package. I also like the mBed form factor as it’s easily bread boarded.
Chris writes:
I considered the mbed but discounted it for the very reasons you point out here. Its a cool little device but the thought of being dependent on a tool chain that I don’t ‘own’ was crazy to me. If they ever open the system or come up with a way of doing builds with an open tool chain I will consider it, but for now it really doesn’t matter. Between the Arduino and the LPC1343 board here at Adafruit (and the LeafLabs Maple I also have) I don’t ‘need’ to use something like the mbed.
ARM, which designs the low-power chips that go into just about every cellphone sold today, commands a prime position when it comes to one of the next major technological revolutions. This is the so-called Internet of Things, when all sorts of everyday objects will have tiny chips placed inside them and gain the ability to process information and talk to the Web…
Dealing with hand-held devices and cellphones forced ARM to operate under severe power restrictions. It chased milliwatts, while Intel chased horsepower.
ARM’s low-power chips are echoed in its laidback culture. Mr. Muller recalled an early meeting in a Cambridge pub where the company’s first employees plotted ARM’s future. The engineers were asked to raise their hands if they wanted to become executives.
“Who cares about the PC?” Mr. Flautner said. “I would love to lose mine. Now, it’s all about penetrating these weird markets that we can’t even fully fathom yet.”
NEW PRODUCT – MicroBuilder LPC1343 (ARM Cortex M3) – The LPC1343 is a low-power, 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessor designed specifically for embedded devices. This is a fully assembled version of the LPC1343 Reference Design from talented Parisian designer, Microbuilder. No soldering required (female header pins are pre-soldered onto the board), this devboard is ready to go out of the box.
Please note that while there are some great introductory getting-started tutorials for this board, its best used by those with microcontroller experience. If you’ve played with AVR or PICs and are intrigued by the low cost and ultra fast 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 series, this is the dev board to get! If you’re just getting started with microcontrollers and electronics you should check out the Arduino which is very beginner-friendly!
In addition to publishing the schematics and layout files, MicroBuilder has written a full software library for the LPC1300 family. This allows you to quickly get started with all on-board peripherals, so you can focus on your own application functionality. The software library includes complete GCC-based startup code and details on setting up an ARM development environment using open source tools. Along with a standard Makefile, project files for the open-source CodeLite C/C++ IDE and the commercial GCC-based Crossworks for ARM are provided.
Within minutes, you’ll be using the USB interface for printf() debugging, reading from the analog inputs using analogRead(), tweaking pins without having to look up registers, etc. and best of all no ARM or JTAG programmer is required! The chip comes with a built in USB bootloader that appears as a very small disk drive. To reprogram, simply press the Bootload button and drag your new firmware file into the USB drive that appears. Then press Reset and your code is running. Is that cool or what?
Check it!
Power the board via the 2.1mm DC jack (6-12V) or the mini-B USB connector (5V). There’s an onboard 3.3V regulator (LT1113)
Debugging LED on pin 2.10 and SWD connectors for programming and debugging
Open source toolchain (GPL) and software library (BSD)
USB 2.0 HID and Mass Storage support built right into the ROM
32K of flash, 8K of SRAM…running at 72 MHz
Built-into-ROM USB bootloader works with any computer and OS
Full Speed USB, TTL UART, SPI and I2C interfaces
Up to 42 General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins with configurable pull-up/pull-down resistors
8 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter pins
Four general purpose counter/timers with a total of four capture inputs and 13 match outputs
NEW PRODUCT – MicroBuilder LPC1343 proto board – v1. Snap on your own circuit with this matching proto PCB for the LPC1343 devboard. There’s space for thru-hole as well as some SMT components. Comes with some standard 0.1″ male header for soldering in, you’ll have to do that yourself but its quite easy.
Printable catalog (PDF)
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