ARM Announces Technical Details Of Next-Generation Architecture

CAMBRIDGE, UK - Oct. 17, 2001 -ARM [(LSE:ARM); (Nasdaq:ARMHY)], the industry's leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, today announced that it has extended its microprocessor technology roadmap with the introduction of the next-generation ARMv6 architecture. ARM will give a presentation at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, Calif., today, disclosing technical details of this new ARM® architecture.

The ARMv6 architecture has been developed by working closely with our architectural licensees such as Intel Corporation and Motorola, and our year-long collaboration with Texas Instruments Incorporated, to extend the capability of the ARM architecture while maintaining code compatibility with earlier ARM core-based products, thereby safeguarding Partners' investment in software. The ARMv6 architecture adds the Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions as announced last year to the proven ARM ISA, boosting performance in audio and video functions by as much as four times. Further enhancements that are part of the ARMv6 architecture include an enhanced level-one memory system as well as improved data synchronization and shared memory management for the efficient implementation of multi-processor systems.

"The complexity of embedded systems is growing rapidly, and the development of the ARMv6 architecture will enable our Partners to significantly increase the capability of their platform and embedded solutions in a wide variety of applications," said John Rayfield, director of R&D, ARM. "The ARMv6 architecture includes innovations in the level-one memory system design which will boost system performance significantly. Additionally, the new capabilities in the areas of data sharing and synchronization will increase the performance of multiprocessor systems."

Benefits of the ARMv6 Architecture

• 30 percent increase in system performance

With the addition of an enhanced level-one memory system, which includes features such as a tightly-coupled Direct Memory Access (DMA) controller and re-architected cache, overall system performance is increased on the ARMv6 architecture by as much as a 30 percent.

• Better multiprocessor support

As a result of a year-long collaboration with Texas Instruments (TI and ARM to Collaborate on DSP and Microcontroller Platform...Nov. 2, 1999) the ARMv6 architecture includes enhancements to data synchronization and shared memory management. These improvements have a significant impact in applications such as 2.5 and 3G wireless platforms where there is a common need for ARM processors to interact with DSPs and other application accelerators.

• Application convergence

The ARMv6 architecture provides improved mixed-endian support and unaligned data in hardware. This enables developers to handle bi-endian systems seamlessly, an important benefit as highly-connected applications with different endian requirements converge.

• Up to 8x performance increase for media applications

In addition to the SIMD capabilities which will boost the performance of media applications such as audio and video encoder/decoders by up to four times, the ARMv6 architecture also includes enhanced instruction set support for motion estimation. This new capability will increase the performance of video encoders by a factor of at least two enabling developers to make a significant saving in power when implementing these functions.

Availability
The ARMv6 architecture will be incorporated into the next-generation of ARM microprocessor cores scheduled for delivery in 2002. The cores can be licensed as intellectual property (IP) for implementation within application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or application specific standard product (ASSP) design. For more information, please email info@arm.com.

About ARM
ARM is the industry's leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions. The company licenses its high-performance, low-cost, power-efficient RISC processors, peripherals, and system-on-chip designs to leading international electronics companies. ARM also provides comprehensive support required in developing a complete system. ARM's microprocessor cores are rapidly becoming the volume RISC standard in such markets as portable communications, handheld computing, multimedia and embedded solutions. More information on ARM is available at http://www.arm.com/
 

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