ARM Cores Enter Pentium Country

ARM Ltd.'s latest embedded processor will cross over into the Pentium II class of performance Monday, offering a new range of computing possibilities to mobile and embedded devices.

ARM's latest cores, to be unveiled at the Microprocessor Forum this week, include the 400-MHz ARM1136J-S and ARM1136JF-S, the first members of its ARM11 product line to use the ARMv6 instruction set. ARM, which markets the cores as blocks of code which can be ported to a variety of manufacturing processes, will ship the finished products at the end of this year, Rayfield said.

Although Intel and AMD receive the bulk of attention in the computing world, ARM's embedded 32-bit architecture, found within cell phones, automotive systems, industrial computers, and other devices, has outsold all others. Intel issued a press release earlier this year when the number of PCs ever sold topped 1 billion; to date, ARM has shipped 1.4 billion of its cores, according to John Rayfield, the company's vice-president of marketing.

"It's kind of a crossing point when you begin outshipping other architectures," Rayfield said.

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