an article about ARM Holdings
Chip Designer Prepares for Wider Demand
By ASHLEE VANCE
September 19, 2010
CAMBRIDGE, England — Near the southeastern edge of Cambridge, where this idyllic university town gives way to fields of green, sits the headquarters of ARM Holdings. Neither the modest three-building campus nor its surroundings evoke notions of a thriving hotbed of computing.
But 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.
In this post-PC era, some analysts say, Intel’s familiar jingle — bummmm, bum, bum, bum, bum — will fade as the central soundtrack of computing. Instead, people will hear nothing, or rather the understated silence that has accompanied ARM’s rise as one of the most important technology companies.
ARM bases its business on licensing chip designs to companies like Apple, Samsung and Qualcomm, which often tweak them to suit their needs. In addition to cellphones, a host of other devices these days run on ARM chips, including TVs from Sony, the Kindle from Amazon and products as varied as hotel door locks, printers, slot machines and cars.
“Our customers sell about 4 billion chips a year,” said Warren East, the chief executive of ARM, during a recent interview.[snip]
nytimes.com |
