ARM is a marvellous success story, and its microprocessors – or IP — are present on an ever-wider portfolio of products, not least its system-on-a-chip devices in a huge number of smartphones, very ‘smart’ TVs, laptops and Android-equipped tablets. ARM is celebrating its 25th year (founded in 1990) and is the centre-piece of the East of England ‘Silicon Fen’ knowledge base of excellence for all things electronic.
Delivering this morning’s early Keynote (Forum, 09:30-10:00) is ARM’s Mark Dickinson (SVP/general manager, media processing group). Dickinson will cover ARM’s latest developments and thinking, and how ARM is designing and creating products for today’s fast-moving marketplace, and for some of the best names in the business.
No doubt he will touch on its latest product offering, the already famous ‘Mali’ chipset which, among other benefits, is designed to bring Ultra HD capabilities to mobile devices. The new chips are designed to straddle the market: the Mali-T820 is for entry-level devices, the Mali-T830 for mid-range mass-market products and the Mali-T860 for top-end devices. The first consumer-targeted versions are already available for licensing and products will start hitting the market this coming winter.
ARM’s final suite of products adds the core Mali product with its sibling video accelerator, and display processor into an all-in-one SoC – and ready for Ultra HD. One of the first major clients to sign a long-term agreement covering the new solution was South Korea’s electronics giant Samsung, and the deal incorporates the high-end T860s and a variation on the device will also go into Samsung’s latest Galaxy smartphone products.
