April 7, 2011 --ARM, along with its core licensees, and Intel, along with its x86 CPU competitors, have recently taken action to put to rest any remaining doubt that both camps were on a collision course; ARM touting its RISC (reduced-instruction-set-computer)-based technology and Intel backing the CISC (complex-instruction-set-computer) approach. When Intel three years ago formally introduced the first-generation Atom processor family, the company made it clear that it was aiming not just at low-end desktop and notebook PCs but also at the handheld systems in which ARM had historically dominated.

In response, ARM more recently unveiled the Cortex-A15 core, whose application targets extend up to the server segment in which Intel and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) have long reigned supreme. And at the January 2011 CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Microsoft revealed its willingness to put a nail in the coffin of the Wintel alliance by broadening upcoming Windows 8’s instruction-set compatibility to encompass both ARM and x86.

Since ARM unveiled the Version 7 instruction set, the company has subdivided its product line into three segments: the highly integrated Cortex-A application processors for mobile devices, cost-sensitive Cortex-M processors for traditional microcontroller applications, and high-performance Cortex-R processors for deeply embedded real-time applications. Cellular handsets, multimedia record-and-playback devices, and other portable electronics systems incur substantial product volume shipments. That fact, along with their direct competition with Intel-architecture processors, explains why this article focuses on ARM Cortex-A CPUs.

By Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor, EDN Magazine.