ARM Strengthens Grip On Phone Processor Market

ARM stock may have endured a roller-coaster ride recently, but the company’s market positions remain strong. Market analyst IDC says the company now powers 90% of the smartphone processing market, and maintains 31% market share in mobile computing. Embedded chips account for half of its revenues. In fact, it already has a 60% market share in embedded systems, a figure that IDC expects to grow to 68% by 2016.

Now ARM looks to making a successful foray into the server market with its power-efficient architecture. However, some industry observers believe it may wind up crossing swords with Intel on server applications. My feeling, though, is Intel may feel that such a conflict will become too protracted and financially challenging.

ARM also announced some pretty powerful new strategies. Foremost among them is an optimized IP solution designed to power the 580 million mid-range mobile devices expected to be produced during the next two years.

The company believes the mid-range market will surpass that of premium smartphones and tablets in 2015. Its new suite of IP is optimized for power, performance, and die size. Moreover, it will provide consumers with premium features like virtualization, big.LITTLE processing, and GPU compute at mid-range price points. The big.LITTLE energy-saving technology is only just arriving on today’s high-end devices, and can already be designed into mid-range smartphones.

The IP suite extends the ARM Cortex-A processor and ARM Mali-T GPU series with the Cortex-A12 processor and Mali-T622 GPU. It also introduces a new video IP product called the Mali-V500.

The Cortex-A12 processor offers ARM partners a 40% boost in performance within the same power envelope when compared to the Cortex-A9 processor. The Cortex-A12 supports big.LITTLE processing technology with the Cortex-A7 processor, and introduces features found in premium smartphones and tablets to mid-range devices, including virtualization.

ARM partners will announce their plans in due course, but the company expects this IP solution will find its way into mobile devices by mid-2014.

Internet Of Things
ARM also decided to implement an Internet of Things (IoT) capability into its Cambridge UK HQ. It will serve as a hub for its partners’ IoT technologies.
 
ARM and its partners recently won £800,000 in funding from the Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s innovation agency, to deploy network technology and over 600 connected sensors across its premises in Cambridge. Smart ARM-technology-based chips control all of the connected sensors. The project will provide information and finely defined control of the site and its 75 car park lights, 40 meeting rooms, and heating- and water-management systems.

The company believes that making connected assets across the ARM campus work together will demonstrate tangible business benefits and help reduce energy usage. Based on open Internet standards and designed to help application developers mobilize all kinds of connected assets, the application programming interface (API) specification will be made public to achieve broader deployment and benefit businesses and individuals worldwide.

ARM partners involved in the project include AlertMe, EnLight and IntelliSense.io. This collaboration between some of the UK’s most advanced technology companies could very well provide the industry with important lessons on how a new generation of intelligent, connected products and services can be fully implemented, with the potential for global adoption.

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