IBM is teaming up with Arm to develop new dual-architecture hardware aimed at streamlining AI and data-intensive workloads for enterprises.

The plan is to combine IBM’s system design capabilities with Arm's expertise in power‑efficient architecture, workload enablement, and broader software ecosystem to build flexible and scalable computing platforms for the future.

"As enterprises scale AI and modernize their infrastructure, the breadth of the Arm software ecosystem is enabling these workloads to run across a broader range of environments," said Mohamed Awad, executive vice president, Cloud AI Business Unit, Arm.

"Our collaboration with IBM builds on this progress, extending the Arm ecosystem into mission-critical enterprise environments and giving organizations greater flexibility in how they deploy and scale these workloads."

The duo said they are exploring how to expand virtualization technologies that allow Arm-based software environments to operate within IBM's enterprise computing platforms.

The plan here is to expand software compatibility and make it easier for developers and enterprises to bring Arm applications into mission-critical environments.

Meanwhile, they're also exploring new ways to support the performance and efficiency demands of modern workloads, including AI and data intensive applications. This will involve enabling enterprise systems to recognize and execute Arm applications.

IBM, Arm eye shared tech layers

Notably, the two firms are focusing on long term ecosystem growth by creating shared technology layers between platforms. IBM said the aim here is to open the door to broader software ecosystems and greater flexibility in how applications are deployed and managed.

IBM noted this could give enterprises more choice, allowing them to adopt new applications and architectures while continuing to leverage existing investments.

Patrick Moorhead, founder, CEO, and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said the partnership highlights a “new phase” of enterprise infrastructure investment where flexibility and portability is as important as performance and reliability.

“As AI and data-intensive applications reshape requirements, organizations are looking for platforms that can evolve without forcing disruptive tradeoffs," Moorhead commented.

"What IBM and Arm are signaling here is a meaningful step toward that future that could broaden how enterprises think about deploying and scaling modern workloads. While the full implications will take time to unfold, it's clear this reflects a deeper level of investment in long-term platform innovation and ecosystem expansion than we typically see at this stage."

Arm shaking up the infrastructure market

The partnership with IBM comes hot on the heels of its AGI CPU launch in late March, the company’s first in-house chip.

As ITPro reported at the time, the launch of the chip marked a significant milestone for the company, which aims to cater to the growing industry focus on agentic AI.

CPUs are becoming increasingly important in supporting agentic AI deployment due to the sequential processing power needed for orchestrating workloads.

The company has already secured deals with major industry players for its AGI CPU, including Meta, which plans to use the chip in its gigawatt-scale data centers. OpenAI also revealed plans to use the chip in future projects.

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Arm has lifted the lid on its first ever in-house chip, in a move that could cement the semiconductor pioneer’s place in AI data centers and reshape the UK’s role in the AI ecosystem.

The Arm AGI CPU isn’t competing with the raw computational power of graphics processing units (GPUs), provided by the likes of AMD and Nvidia. Instead, the chip acts as an orchestrator, scheduling actions taken by AI agents, managing the operations of AI accelerators, and overseeing memory and storage systems within a data center.

CPUs, it seems, are back in the spotlight.

While 2023 and 2024 were characterized by immense demand for GPUs, subsequent years have seen attention fall on more specialized chips. Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are all the rage: Google has tensor processing units (TPUs), Amazon has Trainium and Inferentia, Microsoft has Maia, and Meta has Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) accelerators.

It makes sense for hyperscalers to adopt these chips in addition to (or instead of) third-party GPUs for more efficient AI inference at scale. Google, for example, optimized TPU v7 Ironwood for the best cost per token with its Gemini AI models and to unlock massive throughput improvements.

Arm, however, isn’t wading into this market. Instead, it’s carved out a spot perpendicular to the likes of GPUs and ASICs, with a CPU designed to act as the pace-keeper for AI agent workloads, no matter the hardware they use for raw compute.

Indeed, the firm is leaning into a rising focus on CPUs, which are ideal for the sequential processing necessary for orchestrating workloads. Arm has long acted as the design powerhouse behind the world’s mobile chip architectures, which it licenses to the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung, and Intel.

The potential financial uplift is clear. Arm is forecasting $15 billion in annual revenue in the next five years, according to Reuters. As a UK-headquartered firm, a good portion of this revenue will be reflected in UK tax, payroll, and further investment.

Arm AGI CPU specs

Arm said the AGI CPU has been optimized for high-performance, massively parallel agentic workloads run in dense server racks.

To this end, the chip is equipped with up to 136 of Arm’s Neoverse V3 cores for a frequency of 3.7Ghz, with 2MB L2 cache per core and memory latency below 100ns.

Arm’s reference server configuration for the AGI CPU is a 1OU, 2-node design with two AGI CPUs per blade. Scaled up to a 36kW rack containing 30 blades, this allows for 8,160 Neoverse V3 cores per rack.

The firm has also collaborated with Supermicro on a liquid-cooled, 200kW rack design that can contain 336 AGI CPUs, for a total of more than 45,000 cores. Arm said this configuration delivers an estimated 2x performance uplift in comparison to the latest x86 options.

It will compete directly with Nvidia’s Arm-based Vera CPU, which also runs the orchestration layer for large-scale AI agent deployment. Arm says its chip delivers 6GB/sec of memory bandwidth per chip, while Nvidia’s boasts 14GB/sec. The former is packed with 12-channel, DDR5 memory versus the latter’s LPDDR5X.

Ultimately, however, this is about more than specs on paper. Arm’s advantage is its open design: with compute express link (CXL) 3.0 Type 3 interconnect and DDR5 memory, the AGI CPU can be paired with a far wider range of hardware than the Vera CPU, which is optimized for Nvidia systems.

Arm has also rejected multithreading, in which CPU cores execute multiple threads at the same time. Mohamed Awad, EVP of cloud AI at Arm, told The Register this was to keep performance deterministic.

In other words, Arm is betting that its customers will benefit more from predictable, sustained performance when it comes to orchestrating AI agents rather than from the peaks and troughs of performance unlocked through multithreading. Given the immediate customer interest, we’ll see that theory put to the test soon.

Partners already in place

In advance of the announcement, Arm secured a major commitment with Meta to deploy the new chip. Describing Meta as its “lead partner and customer”, Arm said the company is looking to use the AGI CPU to support its gigawatt-scale data centers alongside MTIA accelerators.

This could be seen as a significant vote of confidence, given Meta is scrambling to catch up with competitors in the AI space. In choosing Arm’s solution, in parallel with its own hardware, Meta has lined up billions in revenue for Arm while strengthening the chip designer’s arguments that its product is up to the task of handling AI agents at the hyperscaler level.

We’ll have to wait and see for more financial details on the deal, in order to assess the price Arm puts on its chip and the rate Meta was willing to pay to shore up its data centers.

Similarly, OpenAI will use the chip for future projects.

“OpenAI runs AI systems at massive scale,” said Sachin Katti, head of Industrial Compute at OpenAI.

“Hundreds of millions use ChatGPT every day, businesses build on our API, and developers rely on tools like Codex. The Arm AGI CPU will play an important role in our infrastructure as we scale, strengthening the orchestration layer that coordinates large scale AI workloads and improving efficiency, performance, and bandwidth across the system.”

It’s unclear at time of writing if the AGI CPU could play a role in Stargate UK, OpenAI’s tie up with data center operator Nscale. Other major customers noted in the announcement include Cloudflare, SAP, and SK Telecom, which represent demand for the chip beyond agentic AI use cases.

“To continue our mission of helping build a better Internet, Cloudflare needs infrastructure that scales efficiently across our global network,” said Stephanie Cohen, chief strategy officer at Cloudflare.

“The Arm AGI CPU provides high-performance, energy-efficient compute designed for the next generation of workloads.”

UK tech on the rise

The extent to which Arm is a UK success story is up for debate. It’s beyond doubt that the nearly 3,500 workers at its Cambridge HQ have played a major role in getting products like the AGI CPU over the finish line, though the firm also has approximately 5,500 workers in other regions.

In her remarks at the 2026 Mais Lecture, chancellor Rachel Reeves paid tribute to Arm, alongside Google DeepMind and the autonomous driving firm Wayve, as examples of British deep tech success.

Only one of these companies – Wayve – remains British owned, however.

In 2016, SoftBank acquired Arm for £24 billion, and while the investment firm promised to keep the company’s HQ in the UK, Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser described the deal as a "a sad day for technology in Britain".

2023 saw Arm listed itself on the US rather than UK stock market. At the time Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, told the BBC that the decision was “a significant blow to the UK tech sector”.

Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that rising revenue at Arm will be felt in the UK tech ecosystem. To date, Arm has carved its place through design brilliance and an open-ended approach that has made it an invaluable supplier for the world’s mobile market.

With a direct route to increased revenue in the AI market now secured, it’s likely to retain its ‘crown jewel’ status in Cambridge and become more integral still to the world’s hyperscalers.

In March the clocks change, Spring begins to show its face, and many companies enter their next financial quarter. But in cybersecurity, no such rays of sunshine are to be found.

In the past week, speakers from across the cybersecurity industry came together at RSAC Conference to warn about the latest threats facing businesses. Some warned that just as AI agents are becoming an opportunity for leaders, they’re also becoming a potential threat vector.

Also this month, Arm has unveiled its first in-house chip, the Arm AGI CPU. What does it mean, and is this a win for UK tech?

In this episode Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to unpack some of the biggest news items from throughout March.

Highlights

"AI was obviously a big talking point at the at the conference this week, it seems cyber security professionals have their work cut out for them. At the very least, there's an opportunity here for cyber professionals to lead AI adoption globally. That was the key takeaway from the opening keynote by Hugh Thompson, RSAC executive chairman. There's a lot to be said about the fact that cyber professionals are now doing a lot of firefighting."

"You can't even give these entities training. They may be behaving in a way that is similar to how a human would behave, but you can't give something that doesn't have human intellect training, which I guess makes them potentially even more dangerous."

"It's kind of a move away from the IP-first approach that Arm has taken for all this time. But also it's not moving Arm into direct competition in the GPU market which, as we know, as we've covered, is heavily saturated, particularly by the likes of Nvidia and AMD, but also Intel at a data center level,"

Footnotes

• Safe AI adoption rests on cybersecurity professionals, says RSAC chairman
• Enterprises need to think of agents as ‘digital co-workers’ – and that means implementing the same security safeguards
• Observability will be key to agentic AI safety, says Microsoft Security exec
• The key risks security teams face in 2026
• Tenable co-CEO Stephen Vintz says enterprises need to get serious about tackling the AI “responsibility gap”
• Systems are deterministic, people are probabilistic – AI is both, and that's a headache for cyber teams

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After a long period of decline, the PC looks primed to return to growth, thanks to the arrival of new AI PC devices optimized for generative AI.

PCs have seen seven consecutive quarters of declining sales, with inflation and a more conservative approach to tech spending among enterprises prompting a marked dip in shipments.

But that could be about to change, according to analysts, with an improved economic environment leading to a surge in sales over the holiday period and beyond into 2024.

Across next year, shipments could hit 267 million units – marking an 8% increase compared to 2023, according to analysis from Canalys. 

While the need to replace aging Windows 10 devices will be a key factor behind this increase, the consultancy said a sharpened focus on the development of new AI PC models by manufacturers will play a pivotal role.

The global PC market is on a recovery path and set to return to 2019 shipment levels by next year, said Canalys analyst Ben Yeh.

"The impact of AI on the PC industry will be profound, with leading players across OEMs, processor manufacturers, and operating system providers focused on delivering new AI-capable models in 2024,” he said.

Canalys predicts that by 2027 over half (60%) of PCs will be ‘AI-capable’. It argues that the boom in generative AI will see PCs undergo a significant transformation in both hardware and software.

Hardware makers are also – unsurprisingly – upbeat about the potential here, with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger saying earlier this month that the “AI PC will be the star of the show” in 2024.

So, what exactly is an AI PC?

Everything you need to know about the rise of the AI PC

Canalys principal mobility analyst Ishan Dutt said that the AI-capable PC category is still in a nascent stage, but the consultancy defines it as a desktop or notebook possessing a dedicated chipset or block to accelerate AI computing. 

Current examples include Qualcomm’s Hexagon Tenser Accelerator, Apple’s Neural Engine, Intel’s Movidius VPU and AMD’s XDNA, he said.

“This definition will evolve over time as these dedicated chipset features become increasingly commonplace in mainstream processors,” he told ITPro.

Dutt said there will be a move towards a nuanced grading scale that takes into consideration specifications about the neural processing unit – such as number of tera operations per second (TOPS) and other hardware requirements around memory and storage.

Apple has been leading the way with AI integration with its M1 Neural Engine way back in 2020, and since then Qualcomm has added to its ARM-based 8cx Gen3 chipset's AI capabilities, with a 2024 upgrade featuring the Nuvia architecture and Windows Copilot integration according to the analyst.

In the x86 world, AMD introduced its AI offering with the "Phoenix" Ryzen 7040, while Intel is marking its AI move by embedding the Movidius VPU in its Meteor Lake range. But beyond the processors, AI PCs will need additional memory, storage and GPUs, Canalys said.

“For instance, as optimized large language models (LLMs) become pre-installed on PCs, a combination of increased storage capacity with high-speed interfaces becomes essential. Similarly, running these LLMs will necessitate more memory and a robust GPU,” Canalys noted.

While adding generative AI capabilities to PCs could make everyone more efficient, the early adopters are likely to be workers who need to use LLMs to crunch data but are cautious about putting that data into a cloud service, or those that don’t want to deal with the latency that using cloud services can create.

Fellow tech analyst Gartner also expects the PC market to bounce back in 2024, as the business PC market is ready for the next replacement cycle, driven by the Windows 11 upgrades.

Meanwhile, it believes consumer PC demand should also begin to recover as devices purchased during the pandemic start to be replaced too.

Arm CEO Rene Haas has raised concerns that humans could eventually lose control over artificial intelligence (AI) systems if there are not sufficient safeguards or override capabilities put in place.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Haas admitted he worries about humans "losing capability’ over the machines at some point in the future. 

"The thing I worry about most is humans losing capability," he told the publication.

“You need some override, some backdoor, some way that the system can be shut down."

The rapid acceleration of the generative AI space has prompted concerns among portions of the global technology sector in recent months.

In March, a host of industry executives, including Apple co-founder Steve Wosniak and Tesla CEO Elon Musk signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on training AI systems more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4.

The letter claimed “human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity”, and outlined a list of the “minimum “ level of safeguarding precautions that should be implemented. 

These precautionary measures include setting up new regulatory authorities dedicated to AI, oversight over the most advanced AI systems, liabilities for harm caused by AI, and more public funding for technical AI safety research.

A second open letter issued by the Center for AI Safety with a far more streamlined message was signed by notable names such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the letter read.

Both letters drew some criticism, with critics arguing the letters distract from the actual near-term harms AI systems already pose to society by focusing on the more abstract, long-term consequences they may incur.

The rush to apply generative AI models across society has prompted concerns around the potential to exacerbate pre-existing biases, amplification of social inequalities, and whether the use of certain generative AI tools could infringe intellectual property (IP) and copyright laws.

The European Union (EU) recently announced it has reached a provisional agreement on its own regulatory framework for AI systems, with measures in place to guarantee the transparency safety of ‘high impact’ foundation models and restrictions around using AI in biometric surveillance systems.

The agreement came after a protracted period of negotiations, slowed down by concerns from industry leaders that innovation may be inhibited by cumbersome regulatory red tape.

Arm has announced the launch of its new Cortex-M52 processor as part of a bid to enhance low-cost AI capabilities for enterprise IoT device users. 

The chipmaker unveiled the launch of its newest processor, which it described as the smallest, most area and cost efficient processor to date, on 22 November.

The Cortex-M52 uses Arm Helium technology, which the firm said will deliver “enhanced AI capabilities for lower cost IoT devices” and accelerate simplified development.

Using Helium, the processor provides significant performance improvements in both digital signal processing (DSP) and machine learning applications, and is targeted specifically for use in “small, low power” devices.

“The Cortex-M52 includes Arm Helium technology, providing a significant performance uplift in DSP and ML applications for small, low power embedded devices, making it possible to deploy more compute intensive ML inference algorithms in endpoints without a dedicated NPU ,” the firm said.

“Helium technology has already been implemented successfully in products at the far edge of the network, but the Cortex-M52 now enables Arm partners to take this capability into lower cost more power constrained devices.”

All told, Arm said developers can benefit from a 5.6x performance uplift for machine learning, as well as a 2.7x performance boost for DSP compared to previous generations of the Cortex-M range.

Paul Williamson, SVP and GM for Arm’s IoT wing, said the launch of the new processor comes in direct response to demand for AI integration with IoT devices to deliver more granular data insights.

“Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) are grabbing headlines, but many don’t realize how much AI is already deployed in embedded devices and impacting applications across our homes, cities and in industry,” he said.

“AI is critical to understanding data and enabling more seamless interactions between the physical and digital world,” Williamson added.

“As this technology advances, on-device intelligence is being deployed in smaller, more cost-sensitive and often battery powered devices at the lowest cost points, with greater privacy and reliability due to less reliance on the cloud.”

Arm Cortex-M52: Simplified migration paths

Arm said the Cortex-M52 provides a “simplified migration path” from previous lines, such as the Cortex-M33 and Cortex-M4, and will target a wide range of AIoT applications. 

This includes creating richer UI, voice, and vision experiences for use in the automotive and industrial control spaces.

Williamson noted that embedded device developers have traditionally grappled with the mathematical, data analysis, toolchain expertise, and programming skills required for AI.

He added that developer enablement in this space is “critical if we are to see an increase in artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) shipments”.

“Historically, to achieve the ML and DSP performance Cortex-M52 delivers would have required the combination of a CPU, a DSP and an NPU, meaning that once the hardware is built, developers would need to write, debug and tune code for chips with three separate tool chains, three compilers, three debuggers, and so on.”

The Cortex-M52, however, simplifies development processes for AI within a “single toolchain and single proven architecture”.

This, he said, ensures a unified development flow” for traditional, DSP, and ML workloads.

Arm has acquired a minority stake in Raspberry Pi in a bid to entice Internet of Things (IOT) developers. 

Neither organization is yet to confirm the size or value of the stake. However, the deal builds on an existing partnership between the two firms that dates back to 2008. 

Arm CPUs have featured in all Raspberry Pi products to date, including the recently-launched Raspberry Pi 5.

Paul Williamson, SVP of Arm's IoT business said the aim of the deal is to consolidate its position with the IoT developer community and drive the creation of IoT solutions.

“Arm and Raspberry Pi share a vision to make computing accessible for all, by lowering barriers to innovation so that anyone, anywhere can learn, experience and create new IoT solutions," he said. 

"With the rapid growth of edge and endpoint AI applications, platforms like those from Raspberry Pi, built on Arm, are critical to driving the adoption of high-performance IoT devices globally by enabling developers to innovate faster and more easily."

Raspberry Pi has evolved somewhat from its early days supplying a device for hobbyists and children, and now counts a growing number of industrial and commercial firms among its customers. 

The devices' low power consumption makes them particularly popular in mobile and IoT devices.

“Arm technology has always been central to the platforms we create, and this investment is an important milestone in our longstanding partnership," says Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi.

"Using Arm technology as the foundation of our current and future products offers us access to the compute performance, energy efficiency and extensive software ecosystem we need, as we continue to remove barriers to entry for everyone, from students and enthusiasts, to professional developers deploying commercial IoT systems at scale.”

Raspberry Pi slices are going fast

The deal follows similar minority investments earlier this year from Sony, which manufactures many boards under contract for Raspberry Pi at a facility in Wales, as well as from Lansdowne Partners and Ezrah Charitable Trust.

Last month, the company said it was considering floating on the London Stock Exchange with a £409 million valuation. The move follows a postponed float in 2021 due to poor listing conditions and global chip shortages.

While Raspberry Pi has used Arm chips in its devices from the get go, there has been rumbling speculation that this might change. 

Five years ago, the company signed up to the RISC-V Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to promoting the free and open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture. 

It's becoming highly popular, with a group of chip firms including Qualcomm, Nordic Semiconductor, and Robert Bosch, forming a company to commercialize the architecture earlier this summer and encourage hardware development in the automotive sector, mobile and IoT sectors. 

However, Raspberry Pi's deal with Arm makes a move to RISC-V highly unlikely any time soon, and gives Arm more credibility in its claims that RISC-V doesn't represent a significant threat.

Arm has appointed former Splunk employee Jason Child as its new chief financial officer (CFO), as the company prepares itself for a public listing.

The company said yesterday that Child has over 30 years of experience in leadership at high-growth companies and scaling global finance functions. The new CFO will join Arm from 2 November, 2022 onwards and lead its global finance and IT organisations, reporting to CEO Rene Haas.

Child is set to replace Arm’s current CFO Inder Singh, who will remain at the company in an advisory role and help with the transition through November, before heading off to a new opportunity.

The new CFO most recently served as senior vice president and CFO at Splunk from 2019. Before Splunk, he had held several CFO positions including at Groupon, where he helped the company go public in 2011, as well as at Amazon International. He has also served as a member of the board of directors of Coupang, an e-commerce company, since April 2022.

“Jason is an experienced leader in global finance and technology,” said Haas. “His extensive experience in financial management at public companies and IPO execution will be invaluable in preparation for a potential public listing. I look forward to working with him as part of the Arm leadership team as we continue to define the future of computing, built on Arm.”

Additionally, the semiconductor company also announced two new board members, Karen Dykstra, former chief financial and administrative officer of AOL, and Jeff Sine, co-founder and partner of global merchant bank Raine Group. Dykstra is also a director on the boards of VMware and Gartner while Sine was previously a managing director at Morgan Stanley.

Arm was originally going to be taken over by Nvidia before the deal was cancelled earlier this year due to regulatory concerns, and has been mulling an IPO ever since.

Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank, the conglomerate that owns Arm, said in June that it was most likely to list the semiconductor company on Nasdaq, although underlined that no decision had been made, as reported by Reuters.

"Most of Arm's clients are based in Silicon Valley and ... stock markets in the U.S. would love to have Arm," said the CEO.

This was followed in September by reports that UK prime minister Liz Truss was planning on launching a last-minute attempt to convince the Japanese conglomerate to list Arm in London. The government was seeking high-level talks with SoftBank executives, which had previously ended following Boris Johnson’s resignation.

The Prime Minister, Liz Truss, is preparing to launch a last-minute push to convince SoftBank to list Arm in London.

The government will seek "high-level" talks with SoftBank executives as soon as the official mourning period for the Queen ends next week, according to The Financial Times, which cites officials with knowledge of the situation.

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is also said to be keen to have the Cambridge-based chip giant list in the UK, despite the CEO of the Japanese conglomerate, Masayoshi Son, favouring a listing in New York. Son reportedly prefers a Nasdaq listing due to its high valuations and experience with major technology companies.

The PM and chancellor, however, are hoping to revive talks with SoftBank, which were said to have ended with Boris Johnson's resignation. MPs and senior executives from the London Stock Exchange have continued to lobby SoftBank since the leadership change, though the government's main push was led by former investment minister Gerry Grimstone who left Westminster shortly after Johnson's exit.

SoftBank executives have kept a close eye on the Conservative party's leadership race, according to FT sources, though the Japanese giant was never convinced that a UK listing was worthwhile. At the very least, the British government is said to want a dual listing between New York and London. That was the previous arrangement for Arm before it was acquired by SoftBank in 2016. A final decision on where Arm is floated is expected to come before Christmas, though SoftBank is thought to want a plan in place before the next quarter.

Arm has been stuck in a limbo of sorts since its proposed takeover by Nvidia was cancelled earlier in the year due to regulatory concerns put forward by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and the wider chip manufacturing industry.

US chipmaker Qualcomm is seeking to invest in Arm as part of a consortium.

Arm’s owner SoftBank is hoping to list Arm next year after Nvidia’s $66 billion acquisition of the company fell through earlier this year.

Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s chief executive, told the Financial Times that the company is an interested party in investing, underlining that Arm is a very important asset given its crucial role in the global technology sector.

Amon emphasised that Qualcomm could join up with other chipmakers to buy Arm if the consortium making the purchase was big enough.

“You’d need to have many companies participating so they have a net effect that Arm is independent,” said Amon.

Qualcomm had opposed Nvidia’s proposed acquisition of Arm, saying that it made no sense for one chipmaker to take control of a company that was of such fundamental value to the entire sector.

“Arm has won everywhere because of the collective investment of the entire ecosystem, from companies like Apple and Qualcomm and many others, and that’s because it was an independent, open architecture that everybody could invest in,” said Amon, talking about the period before SoftBank purchased the company.

Qualcomm hasn’t spoken to SoftBank about the potential investment just yet, revealed Amon, He said the Japanese group had been prioritising resolving a dispute at Arm’s joint venture in China, where its CEO had refused to step down.

Amon’s proposition could provide additional momentum to the idea of a group of chipmakers becoming investors in Arm. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger suggested the company could support a move earlier this year.

In March, SK Hynix was also reportedly reviewing plans to acquire Arm. Park Jung-ho, vice chairman and CEO of the company, said it was considering forming a consortium, along with strategic partners, to jointly acquire the chipmaker. He emphasised that he doesn’t think Arm can be bought by one organisation.

Arm strikes licensing deals with partners, no matter their size or where they are based. This has led to its intellectual property being used in the majority of chips sold globally. In August 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) raised concerns around Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm as the merged business would have the capacity and incentive to restrict access to Arm’s intellectual property. This is used by companies that rival Nvidia to produce semiconductor chips, in competition with the US giant.

This was echoed by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in December 2021. It said the deal would "stifle" competition for multiple technologies because Arm is a "critical input" that fosters competition between Nvidia and its rivals. It said this kind of acquisition would give Nvidia a way to undermine other companies.

Why is Arm so important?

Consumption of semiconductor chips is growing rapidly, in the EU alone the consumption of leading edge chips is forecast to grow exponentially by 15% compound annual growth rate between 2020-2030, Dieter Gerdemann, partner at Kearney, told IT Pro.

"It should come as no surprise that due to the dominance of Arm, in the supply of chips for smart phones, with 90% of devices using the chip and IoT applications, and in fields such as data centres that Qualcomm has chosen to take an interest," he added.

Gerdemann said that Nvidia's attempted takeover of Arm was met with critique across the semiconductor sector which argued for the independence of the ARM eco-system and the benefits ARM’s status as a chip powerhouse in Europe brings. 75% of leading-edge chips are currently being produced in East Asia and, following the EU Chips Act, the focus has never been more on Europe.

“The idea that Qualcomm might now invest in Arm, after arguing against the Nvidia takeover, is an interesting one," he said. "The consortium they indicate to invest through will certainly need to meet stringent requirements for openness and transparency in order to gain acceptance of the global semiconductor community.

"However, we are convinced of the benefits of a publicly listed Arm entity, as the forces of the free market will ensure Arm stays competitive and continues to be the innovation powerhouse that it is today – to the benefit of the semiconductor ecosystem and Europe as a semiconductor design powerhouse.”

Arm China’s CEO is refusing to step down after being ousted by Arm last week.

The SoftBank-owned company tried to replace the CEO of its joint venture in China, Allen Wu, last week after attempting to wrestle control of the unit for the last two years. It sold a majority stake in the company in 2018 before a dispute began in 2020 over its management. Arm attempted to replace Wu as it believed he was putting the progress of Arm China at risk.

Wu is now refusing to relinquish his role despite being fired last week, Arm China said today in a Weibo post, as reported by Reuters. The company said that Wu has refused to comply with the board’s decision, deliberately challenged the bottom line of the law, and refused to hand over his management duties.

It added that Wu and his supporters have been using social media accounts and platforms to voice opposition to the board’s decision. In response, Arm China said it would make its official Weibo account its main communications channel with immediate effect.

It also said it might pursue legal action against those who use the company’s other online channels to spread false information, including via WeChat and other websites associated with the company.

When asked about Wu refusing to step down, a spokesperson from Arm told IT Pro that its statement from last week still stands.

“Arm China has resolved its longstanding corporate governance issue as its board of directors has voted unanimously to appoint Liu Renchen and Eric Chen as Arm China’s co-CEOs,” said the spokesperson.

Earlier this week, a letter emerged which appeared to be from Arm China’s staff on its official website protesting the removal of Wu. The letter accuses SoftBank of seeking to control Arm China despite its minority shareholding, as translated by The Register.

By doing this, it says it ignores Arm China’s purpose, which is to provide a major commercial distribution channel for Arm to licence its IP to Chinese licensees. The letter describes the takeover as unreasonable, harmful to investors, and illegal, despite the relevant Chinese authorities signing off on the changes at the company. The document appears to be signed by hundreds of staff members.

This could complicate Arm’s stock market listing, as the company has not received a financial audit from its Chinese joint venture for the past two years, a process needed for its planned IPO.

Arm owned a 47% stake in Arm China, with the remaining stake controlled by various Chinese entities, including Hopu Investment which has a 36% stake, according to Tom’s Hardware. Arm tried to transfer its stake in Arm China to an independent entity last month in an attempt to help it IPO without requiring Arm China to be audited. By transferring its stake, it could change the status of Arm China from a joint venture to an investment.

In order to IPO, Arm needs to complete its financial review between June and September, an impossible task as Arm China refuses to disclose its financial results. However, it’s unclear whether the stake transfer was approved by Arm China CEO Wu, meaning that Arm China could still be an Arm joint venture.

Softbank pulled the plug on the sale of Arm to Nvidia in February and has expressed an intent to list the company on a stock exchange by March 2023.

Nvidia has warned that Arm’s competitors are getting ahead as a result of the company having to grapple with regulatory hurdles surrounding its acquisition of the British chipmaker.

The government ordered the CMA to carry out a “phase two” investigation in November last year to further scrutinise the proposed acquisition. During this part of the investigation, the CMA would consider whether the acquisition of Arm by the US chip giant is a threat to competition and national security.

In Nvidia and Arm’s initial Phase 2 submission, the companies have published their response and warned that while they are engaging with regulators, Arm’s competition has been exploiting the delay and moving fast. Nvidia, SoftBank, and Arm underlined they have been working with regulators at the CMA and worldwide for over a year, while Intel, Qualcomm, and Arm’s other competition continue to expand their offerings and exploit the uncertainty surrounding Arm’s future.

An example of this is in March 2021, several months after Nvidia and Softbank announced the acquisition, when Intel announced it will license its dominant x86 CPU IP to chip designers as part of its foundry services (IFS), according to the submission. Intel called IFS a “meaningful shift in how people think about Arm versus x86.”

Nvidia and Arm said that Intel is already competing head-to-head with Arm to supply CPU IP for important customers, targeting cloud service providers. They added that IFS is a strong challenge to Arm’s efforts in the data centre and PC markets.

“Customization was Arm’s greatest selling point in the data centre, as Arm does not have the mature ecosystem or massive R&D resources that Intel can bring to bear,” they stated. “Now Arm’s handful of data centre customers can create custom x86 CPUs that will benefit from the massive x86 code base.”

The companies went on to emphasise that SoftBank’s investment phase has concluded, and one way or another, it intends to exit Arm. They said that regulators worldwide have considered two different outcomes for the company, to either be acquired by Nvidia, subject to legally binding commitments to expand its R&D and license Arm IP to all without bias or discrimination, or to become a profit-maximising IP licensing firm, with no other profit generators or specific legal restrictions on its licensing practices. Most importantly, there would be no binding or enforceable assurance that Arm will invest in any market or product.

When it comes to whether Arm should have undergone an IPO, the companies said SoftBank rejected this idea in 2019 and again in 2020 as the markets would not give SoftBank the necessary return on investment.

“We contemplated an IPO but determined that the pressure to deliver short-term revenue growth and profitability would suffocate our ability to invest, expand, move fast and innovate,” said Arm’s CEO Simon Segars.

The companies added that Arm does not have the systems building expertise, the software engineering scale, or the R&D resources of x86 vendors like Intel and AMD. Even under the most optimistic projections, Arm wouldn’t be able to generate the revenue necessary to invest and compete with the entrenched x86 incumbents, said the companies.

Nvidia said it was particularly concerned that Arm would be forced to deprioritise data centre and PC and instead focus on its core mobile and growing IoT business, which would result in a concentrated CPU market largely controlled by Intel and AMD, with the remainder controlled by powerful and far more profitable Arm architectural licensees.

Nvidia emphasised it has offered comprehensive guarantees, which Arm does not provide today and would not provide if it went through an IPO. This includes implementing an open license programme, expanding Arm’s R&D in the UK and supporting its product roadmaps, promoting interoperability and allowing customers to determine it as they see fit, and protecting any confidential Arm customer information.

“If Arm alone could vanquish x86 in data centre and PC, its market share would not be mired in the low single digits, and tomorrow’s technologies—such as Omniverse—would be developed on Arm, not x86,” the submission concludes.

The companies argued that if the acquisition was not allowed to go ahead, it would prevent Arm from bringing competition into areas that have long been dominated by x86. The alternative, urged by deal opponents, would be a standalone, profit maximising business without any guarantees on licensing policy or investments. The companies finished by saying this would result in less investment in the UK, less resources for Arm, and less competition worldwide.

Nvidia's acquisition of Arm has been dealt a fresh blow as the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued to block the merger over anti-competition concerns.

The FTC said the deal would "stifle" competition for multiple technologies because Arm is a "critical input" that fosters competition between Nvidia and its rivals.

Such an acquisition, it said, would give Nvidia a way to "undermine" other companies.

An administrative trial is due to start 9 August 2022, but Nvidia appears unconcerned by the lawsuit, calling it the "next step" in the FTC's process in a statement to Techcrunch. The firm remains confident that its proposed acquisition will actually "accelerate" Arm's business model and foster more competition.

However, an FTC lawsuit is a significant step as the commission often takes legal action when it believes a company is breaking the law. Unlike regulators in the UK and Europe, which have powers to block certain deals, the FTC operates under the 'Hart-Scott-Rodino Act', which only allows it to review cases that affect commerce in the US. It has to go through the court to block deals that it believes would "substantially lessen competition".

"Tomorrow's technologies depend on preserving today's competitive, cutting-edge chip markets," said FTC bureau of competition director Holly Vedova. "This proposed deal would distort Arm's incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine Nvidia's rivals.

"The FTC's lawsuit should send a strong signal that we will act aggressively to protect our critical infrastructure markets from illegal vertical mergers that have far-reaching and damaging effects on future innovations."

Nvidia's plans to take over Arm, which is currently owned by the Japanese investment group SoftBank, has been heavily scrutinised from the get-go. Regulators and MPs in the UK have expressed concerns over the proposals, with the Competition and Markets Authority currently investigating the merger.

The European Commission has also launched its own investigation into the purchase.

Arm has launched Arm Total Solutions for IoT, a cloud-based platform to enable software development without the need for physical silicon.

The company hopes this will simplify and modernise software development, resulting in accelerated time to market for developers, OEMs, and service providers at all stages of the Internet of Things (IoT) value chain. It also claims it will reduce the product design cycles by up to two years.

The new platform is built on Arm Corstone, the company's IoT system on a chip (SoC) package, and will deliver a virtual model of the Corston subsystem to allow for software development without the need for physical silicon. It will provide mechanisms for simulating memory, peripherals, and more, to allow for development and testing of software before hardware is available.

The company said this will allow users to reduce a typical product design cycle from an average of five years to as little as three. It will help Arm customers get customer feedback for chips before release and allows the entire IoT value chain to develop and test code on the latest IP ahead of chips being released.

To help it simplify the design process and streamline product development, it contains hardware IP, software, machine learning models, and application-specific reference code.

“Through a radical change in how systems are designed, Arm is uniquely positioned to fuel a new IoT economy that rivals the shape, speed and size of the smartphone industry’s app economy,” said Mohamed Awad, vice president of IoT and Embedded at Arm. “Arm Total Solutions for IoT changes the way we’re delivering key technology to the entire ecosystem and demonstrates our significant and ongoing investment in the software that will empower developers to innovate for global impact.”

Arm is also set to introduce Project Centauri, a set of device and platform standards as well as reference implementations for device boot, security, and cloud integration. The company hopes this will reduce engineering costs, accelerate time to market, enable IoT deployments at scale, and improve security.

In March, Arm launched its first new chip architecture in a decade, focusing on security and AI. It is called v9 and the company hoped it would help it move from general-purpose to more specialised compute across applications like AI, 5G, and IoT.

After sixteen major releases, you might think there’s not much left to be added to Parallels Desktop – and for the vast majority of Mac users who are still using Intel CPUs, there isn’t. For them, this update to the popular virtualisation software tidies up a few bugs and adds support for the latest version of the Linux kernel, but that’s largely it. Overall it’s not even consequential enough to warrant a full ticking up of the version number.

Yet arguably, this is the most significant release of Parallels Desktop since it first appeared in 2006. Just as version one unlocked the potential of Apple’s then-recent switch to the Intel architecture, this one breaks new ground by allowing you to install and run Windows 10 on Apple Silicon.

It’s an enticing prospect, but not quite as straightforward as it sounds. It would be a huge technical challenge to get a standard x86 build of Windows 10 running on Apple’s ARM-based M1 chip, and Parallels doesn’t attempt it. Rather, the focus is on Microsoft’s own port of Windows 10 for ARM processors. With Parallels Desktop, you can now run Windows on ARM (WoA) in a VM on the M1 platform – and since the OS itself includes an Intel translation layer, it opens the door to running a huge range of Windows apps on the latest Macs.

The catch is that while Parallels Desktop may be ready for WoA, the OS itself is still a work in progress. Early versions have trickled out on a handful of lightweight laptops – notably Microsoft’s own Surface Pro X – but the only way to get an installer for your Mac is via the free Windows Insider programme, which means you can expect beta-quality code with no guarantees of performance or stability.

Parallels Desktop 16.5 review: Setup

Virtualisation can be a complicated business, but Parallels makes it pretty painless. Once you’ve installed the Parallels Desktop app on an M1-powered Mac, it prompts you to pick a guest OS, with helpful links to ready-to-roll images for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Debian 10.7, Fedora Workstation 33-1.2, and Kali Linux 2021.1. This is a nice spread of options to have, but we doubt many people are really buying Parallels to run Linux, especially inside a host OS that’s already built on UNIX.

Happily, installing Windows is almost as easy. Microsoft provides the WoA installer in the form of a VHDX image file, which you can simply drag onto the Parallels window and boot to kick off the installation. There’s nothing to customise on the OS side; accept the default settings in Parallels and you’ll be looking at a Windows 10 desktop in no more than ten minutes.

Parallels Desktop 16.5 review: Compatibility and features

Once you’ve got past the thrill of seeing Windows boot up on your Mac desktop, the experience is pretty anticlimactic. WoA looks and feels exactly like regular Windows 10, and it works like it too: initial releases were limited to running 32-bit code, but that restriction is now gone, and we were able to install and use a whole stack of industry-standard apps and tools with zero fuss, including Chrome, Office, Photoshop, 7-Zip and Zoom. We’re not saying it necessarily makes sense to run these apps in Parallels, but they illustrate how broadly Windows on ARM can stand in for the x86 edition.

Anything in the Microsoft Store ought to work too, since WoA fully implements the UWP framework, and any other required resources should come bundled into the installation package. In fact, when we tried to set up the Dropbox client, the regular installer detected a platform error and smartly directed me to install the Store edition instead, which worked perfectly.

As usual with VMs, Windows appears as a desktop in a window, but with a click you can enable Parallels’ signature Coherence mode. This lets Windows applications float freely among your Mac windows, and puts their icons in the Dock alongside native apps. Your personal folders in Windows are mapped directly to their Mac equivalents, helping to smooth out cross-platform workflows, and you can even copy and paste text and images between Windows apps and Mac ones.

This being a virtual machine, you can also take snapshots of your Windows system whenever you like, and roll back to previous states at will. This could be useful if you just need to use Windows from time to time to accomplish a specific task, and don’t want to worry about unwanted cruft or malware accumulating over time.

Parallels Desktop 16.5 review: Hitches and hurdles

Parallels makes a good go of integrating Windows apps into the Mac environment, but some dissonance is unavoidable. For example, apps from different platforms have their window controls at opposite corners, and the modifier keys on the standard Mac keyboard are in a different order to Windows, which tends to mess with our brain. We don’t see that there’s a better solution, but it’s not ideal.

And while WoA works remarkably well with modern apps, older software is more hit and miss. For example, we normally use an ageing edition of MAGIX Sound Forge 11 for our everyday audio editing tasks; this works perfectly well on our “real” Windows 10 desktop, but it refused to install in WoA, complaining that a DLL couldn’t be registered. We tried to roll back further to version 9, but this demanded the .NET Framework 2.0, and our attempts to install it were rewarded only with error codes.

The connecting together of the Mac and Windows file systems can confuse some apps too. Macrium Reflect couldn’t handle the fact that our Desktop folder wasn’t located on a real hard disk and crashed at the very start of the installation. On that note, anything that requires bespoke hardware drivers is likely to struggle too.

This sort of thing matters, because one of the most common use cases for virtualisation is to keep alive legacy software that’s not supported on the new OS. It’s not at all surprising if apps from the XP or Windows 7 era don’t work on this whole new architecture, but it is a shame.

And don’t forget that the OS is, at present, an Insider release. This means it receives large, frequent updates, sometimes on a daily basis. It’s possible that new builds will progressively make more apps and devices work in WoA, but they may also unpredictably change and even break things.

Parallels Desktop 16.5 review: Performance

By default, Parallels Desktop allocates two of the M1’s eight processor cores to your virtual WoA machine, along with 3GB of RAM. You can raise it to a maximum of four CPU cores and 8GB of RAM – or higher if you’ve sprung for a Pro subscription – but doing so inevitably leaves fewer resources for macOS. However you slice it, it’s not exactly a recipe for peak performance.

On top of that, most of the programs you’re currently likely to want to run in Windows are going to have to go through Intel emulation, and this drags performance down enormously. We used Parallels Desktop to run our standard benchmark suite on WoA on an 8GB Mac Mini, and while we were pleased to see that the tools installed and ran without a hiccup, it was hard to be delighted about the eventual score of just 23 – a long way off the 223 achieved by the same hardware using ARM-native video tools in macOS. Even if you give Windows four cores to play with, performance only scales linearly to an overall score of 45.

Still, this doesn’t make WoA unusable at all. Performance is about on par with a lightweight Windows laptop from 2015, and while we wouldn’t want to do everything in that environment, it’s perfectly fine for the odd individual task. Since the Windows system itself is running natively on ARM, the whole caboodle feels more responsive than you’d expect anyway – and there’s surely scope to improve translation performance in future builds.

Parallels Desktop 16.5 review: Verdict

Barely six months after the M1 processor was unveiled to the world, Parallels Desktop 16.5 gives it a whole new dimension of potential. For that, it feels absurdly cheap, with the standard edition costing a flat £80. Alternatively, you can sign up for a rolling subscription, but at £70 per year it’s not an obviously great deal. As we’ve mentioned, there’s also a subscription-only Pro edition for £80 a year, which lets you virtualise up to 32 cores and 128GB of RAM as well as adding some advanced developer features, and a business edition at the same price which focuses on centralised deployment and management.

The fly in the ointment is WoA itself. It’s expressly a work-in-progress OS with unpredictable app compatibility – and so far Microsoft hasn’t made any real commitment to its future. In two years’ time it could be a thriving companion to the Intel build, or it could be an abandoned experiment.

For now, therefore, we can say only that Parallels Desktop 16.5 is an impressive proof of concept, and a fun and useful tool for tinkerers. Whether it becomes a true landmark release is down to Microsoft. Parallels deserves praise for what it’s put together, but we’d recommend you wait for the OS to at least reach a first stable public release before you invest in the idea of Windows on Apple Silicon.

Arm has introduced a new chip architecture that will focus on security and AI and will be at the forefront of the next 300 billion Arm-based chips.

The new architecture is called “v9” and is the company’s first new Arm architecture in a decade.

Arm hopes the new AI and security capabilities in the v9 architecture will help the company move from general-purpose to more specialised compute across applications such as AI, IoT and 5G.

“As we look toward a future that will be defined by AI, we must lay a foundation of leading-edge compute that will be ready to address the unique challenges to come,” said Simon Segars, chief executive officer at Arm.

“Armv9 is the answer. It will be at the forefront of the next 300 billion Arm-based chips driven by the demand for pervasive specialized, secure and powerful processing built on the economics, design freedom and accessibility of general-purpose compute.”

The company also disclosed that over 100 billion devices with Arm-based chips have shipped in the last five years, and predicts that 100% of the world’s shared data will soon be processed by Arm “either at the endpoint, in the data networks or the cloud”.

The Armv9 also introduces the Arm Confidential Compute Architecture (CCA) which shields portions of code and data from access or modification while in-use by performing computation in a hardware-based secure environment.

“In Armv9, we are introducing new features designed to deliver confidential computing – now an industry priority – at scale. Ordinarily, the operating system (OS) of a device has the highest authority and can see and do everything,” wrote Segars.

“Confidential compute changes that, and while the OS still decides what can run when, applications sit in a separate hardware-protected area of memory isolated from everything else in the system.”

This is a concept the company calls Realms, “in a region that is separate from both the secure and non-secure worlds.” Arm stated that in business applications, Realms can potentially protect commercially sensitive data and code from the rest of the system while it is in use, at rest and in transit.

Intel announced this month it was working with a US government agency to develop an accelerator for fully homomorphic encryption, a type of encryption that allows users to perform calculations on encrypted data without decrypting it first.

"The increasing complexity of use cases from edge to cloud cannot be addressed with a one-size-fits-all solution," said Henry Sanders, corporate vice president and chief technology officer, Azure Edge and Platforms at Microsoft. "As a result, heterogeneous compute is becoming more ubiquitous, requiring greater synergy among hardware and software developers.

“A good example of this synergy between hardware and software are the ArmV9 confidential compute features which were developed in close collaboration with Microsoft. Arm is in a unique position to accelerate heterogeneous computing at the heart of an ecosystem, fostering open innovation on an architecture powering billions of devices."

Furthermore, Arm has developed Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) technology for its new architecture which will allow it to “enable enhanced machine learning (ML) and digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities across a wider range of applications.”

Arm stated the technology, called SVE2, will enhance the processing ability of 5G systems, virtual and augmented reality, and ML workloads running locally on CPUs, which includes image processing and smart home applications.

Arm also predicts that with the Armv9 generation its expected CPU performance will increase by 30% or more over the next two generations of mobile and infrastructure CPUs.

Arm has been acquired by Nvidia for $40 billion (£30 billion) although the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into the acquisition to see what effect the deal will have on the UK market.

UK-based IT experts objected to the deal and believe the government should intervene as did Graphcore and Hermann Hauser, who was involved in the development of the first Arm processor. Hauser has described the deal as “an absolute disaster for Cambridge, the UK and Europe”.

The UK has a rich history in tech, but many of Britain’s biggest tech firms are sold to overseas investors, with assets and know-how heading overseas.

Britain runs a free-market model, but many believe that there’s value in greater intervention. “In the modern world, all the national returns are in the profit and the share of income and assets,” said Dan Ciuriak, a trade consultant and senior fellow at Canada’s Centre of International Governance Innovation.

“This is where new national wealth is being generated – it’s no longer labour income [through taxes] that’s generating the money. If your economic strategy remains in the industrial era, you will see a shrinking as a percentage of global wealth.”

No matter how much money a company such as Facebook makes in the UK, or how much formerly UK-owned chip design giant Arm makes globally, the UK’s benefit is negligible. “The question for a government is do we intervene or not? What matters is who owns these assets and do they reside on your territory,” said Ciuriak.

The UK has waved goodbye to several leading tech companies in recent years as venture capital companies and multinational giants shop for bargains. Logica, CRM, Autonomy, Arm and Sophos have all vanished from the UK stock market in the past eight years, along with a host of others that had potential to be big players.

Senior figures in UK tech believe authorities have been too relaxed about the sale of such assets, allowing valuable or strategic companies to be lost overseas. Not only does this damage tax revenue, it reduces the country’s influence and sees talent, knowledge and intellectual property leave.

Take Sir Hossein Yassaie, former CEO of Imagination Technologies, which still resides in the UK but is largely owned by Chinese capital and has been under scrutiny over who is really running the firm. In May this year, addressing a House of Commons committee exploring how to stop foreign asset stripping of UK companies, Yassaie said that some UK assets were too important to lose, and that current policy left too much to chance.

“Essentially, if we want to sell some businesses it would not matter, because they are not unique and many people around the world could do those things,” he told the committee. “But if the technologies are powerful and unique and could be used in an unfriendly manner, I think a control mechanism and governance needs to be around them to make sure the right thing happens.”

Asked by the committee whether control mechanisms in the UK were sufficient, Yassaie said: “What we have is lax. I think it is very important that there is sufficient control around ownership and definitely governance.”

Protect and serve

In contrast, the US is more robust due to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which was set up to review national security implications of acquisitions by foreign investors of US companies.

In recent years, for example, CFIUS has ordered Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun to sell Grindr due to worries over security, while foreign acquisitions of semiconductor makers Lattice and Qualcomm have also been blocked. At the time of writing, TikTok’s US operations are up in the air, despite Oracle taking over some of its operations in the country.

Whether that sale of TikTok is actually a security question or merely US protectionism is debatable. “If you look at TikTok, it had gathered a lot of data and was only starting on how to monetise it – but the market valuation was soaring, not because of what it had, but because of the future and it was on a track to be the next Facebook with a trillion-dollar market cap,” said Ciuriak.

“Governments are looking at this and thinking: do we want a Chinese company capturing this future prospect of a one-trillion dollar market cap and the US said ‘no’ – they want to capture that in the US.”

Arm is the best example of a British asset being sold off. The Cambridge-based company has been designing chips since the 1980s. With Arm-designed processors powering 95% of the world’s smartphones, it was the jewel in the crown of UK technology until it was bought by Japanese company SoftBank in 2016 for $32 billion.

It’s now up for sale again, and there are fears that it could face a bleak future depending on who buys it. “The one saving grace about SoftBank was that it wasn’t a chip company, and retained Arm’s neutrality,” Arm co-founder, Hermann Hauser told the BBC recently. “If it becomes part of Nvidia, most of the licensees are competitors of Nvidia, and will of course then look for an alternative to Arm. It will become one of the Nvidia divisions, and all the decisions will be made in America, no longer in Cambridge.”

According to Hauser, the fact that SoftBank is hungry for a deal means a UK buyback would make perfect sense. He argues that if the UK could afford £500 billion to bail out banks, why not invest a few billion in a profitable, strategically important technology player? “The great opportunity that the cash needs of SoftBank presents is to bring Arm back home and take it public, with the support of the British government,” he said. “It’s not about the money, it’s the industrial strategy statements that the government can make.”

Leave it be

Despite the calls for greater government intervention, there are concerns it could deter investors and startups from locating in the UK. Given the goal of many startups is to reach, say, a million users and sell, experts say too much intervention might force them to look elsewhere when founding a business. “With DeepMind [bought by Google] it was a genuine acquisition – it’s not like they didn’t have a choice about selling it,” said Palitha Konara, senior lecturer in international business at the University of Sussex.

“If the government was going to intervene to that extent it might well be counterproductive, because a lot of the good acquisitions would not take place and that could stop people setting up in the UK.”

There are also fears that the UK doesn’t have the economic clout to keep tech companies on our shores. We spoke with one former industry-government liaison professional who didn’t want to be named. “The UK keeps making interesting innovative tech companies of a decent size, good talent and growth and they get the attention of other people and become strategically valuable businesses to acquire – that’s a good thing,” he said.

“We can grow to a certain scale, but there are limitations,” he added. “There are large players in the platform markets who have the money and capacity to buy people out. That’s a global competition question that hasn’t been solved. The reality is that this is always going to happen to an economy the size of the UK that keeps making innovative things.”

There are also questions over whether the government is really capable of working out when and where to invest. “Would you trust them to be the ones saying we can predict what Arm’s business plan should be in ten years’ time?” said one of our commentators, who asked for the comment to be unattributed.

In September, American tech firm Nvidia made global headlines when it unveiled plans to acquire British chipmaker Arm for $40 billion. While the deal seems a huge economic win for the UK’s tech industry, many tech experts and companies are worried it could cause more harm than good.

In particular, they’re concerned the acquisition could result in Nvidia transferring jobs and operations at Arm to the other side of the Atlantic. Nvidia has denied this, with CEO Jensen Huang saying it "intends to retain the name and strong brand identity" of Arm. But despite these assurances, there have been calls on the UK government to step in and block the deal.

Hermann Hause, co-founder of Arm, has been one of biggest critics of the deal. He claims that it will be “an absolute disaster for Cambridge, the UK and Europe". Meanwhile, Labour’s Ed Miliband believes that "legally binding assurances" are needed to ensure that UK-based roles aren’t lost. Are these concerns warranted, and does this deal really pose a threat to the UK tech industry?

Losing control

For many experts, the prospect of another country gaining control of Britain’s biggest technology company is a massive concern. Jake Moore, security specialist at ESET, says: “A foreign takeover of Britain’s most successful tech company will always send shivers down the industry’s spine.

“Losing the business to overseas and inevitably placing jobs on the line will always worry the industry. It’s losing yet another piece of armour to foreign soil, surrendering one of the industry’s most famous companies.”

But Moore points out that Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm doesn’t just present economic challenges; he believes there are also security concerns surrounding the deal. “Companies will always be acquired, but the loss of control goes far deeper than just financial reasons. Security threats that we don’t even know are possibly more worrying when ownership is handed over,” he explains.

“The internet is already full of unknowns. But this is increased in company acquisitions, especially when it’s unknown how the company manages its data, which can concern governments. Cyber due diligence is vital, yet rarely a game changer. It does, however, highlight the change for UK tech sovereignty.”

Paolo Pescatore, tech, media and telco analyst at PP Foresight, agrees that the acquisition could have huge implications. He tells IT Pro: “Deals of this magnitude inevitably lead to significant cost cutting measures. Therefore, there will be huge uncertainty as to whether jobs will be cut, offices closed and operations relocated.

“This could potentially have an impact on the UK tech industry, more so at a time when the UK is looking to reposition itself as a global hub for innovation in technology and connectivity.”

US restrictions

If the deal is approved and goes ahead, some experts are worried that UK-based companies using Arm technologies could suffer in the long-term. Harman Singh, director at cyber security services firm Cyphere, says: “One of the biggest threats is the UK companies that incorporate Arm chip designs in their products may suffer due to this deal. There have been no US export controls exemptions promised so far to UK companies.

“It's Nvidia's bosses who sit across the pond and all decisions will be made there. A lot of UK companies that work in the China market, for example, may face the heat due to US/China relations as well as possible export restrictions.”

He also expresses concern about potential job losses in Cambridge. “There may be hundreds of jobs at risk as there is no formal job assurance (as seen or read so far) by Nvidia. Our country's CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) should perform a review of this deal keeping in mind financial impact on the local market,” says Singh.

Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, also warns of potentially devastating consequences if Nvidia starts making changes to Arm’s UK operations. “We could potentially see British tech jobs under threat, as well as crucial expertise and IP moved to the US. With Brexit and COVID-19 already adversely affecting foreign tech talent from remaining in the UK, this would surely act as a further catalyst for a brain drain,” he says.

Shaw says the deal could limit the UK's leverage in tech diplomacy, which could be catastrophic as the country looks to negotiate trade deals globally. He explains: “Should the political and diplomatic relationship with the US sour, the Trump Administration could feasibly place trade restrictions on the UK similar to those currently affecting China, preventing the UK from using its own micro-chips and design capability. More broadly, international tech collaboration could further suffer, as the US government would be able to prevent Chinese companies’ access to a Nvidia-owned Arm in the same way that it has been doing with Huawei.”

Being positive

While many aspects of this takeover are uncertain, some members of the British tech community are more optimistic. Chris Greenwood, general manager of UK&I at NetApp, says: "I believe this acquisition will give local technology entrepreneurs a shot in the arm to help propel the UK out of the recession by inspiring the next generation of UK tech success stories.

“There are reasons to be positive. Firstly, the acquisition proves UK-built technology has global credibility. Secondly, the wider availability of high-performance cloud computing at manageable costs is powering Nvidia’s artificial intelligence (AI) proposition. Our sector and government should be confident that British technological innovation will continue post-Arm."

Dr Andrew Rogoyski, an independent technology advisor, says Nvidia will make an interesting owner of Arm. “It’s a company with grand ambitions who has transformed itself from a leading GPU manufacturer to one of the world’s biggest chip manufacturers. Acquiring Arm could place it at the head of next generation technologies for mobile, AI, low-energy and IoT technologies,” he explains.

“Nvidia has made some very creative investments in AI hardware, repurposing their GPU technologies for deep learning applications and other AI techniques. AI is certainly one of the ‘next big things’ and if the acquisition of Arm is part of this roadmap then we can expect some truly remarkable developments.”

But he expresses concern around changes to Arm’s business model, should the deal go ahead. He explains: “The problem with the sale to Nvidia is that it breaks Arm’s business model, which currently depends on being able to sell its innovations to all the major tech companies. If Nvidia tries to leverage the advantages Arm innovations brings it, favouring certain companies, it may break that model.”

On the face of things, a $40 billion takeover of a British-born and bred technology company appears to be a huge vote of confidence for the UK tech industry during times of economic uncertainty. But it’s clear that the deal is far from perfect and could have huge consequences for the sector not just in its home country but around the world.

Nvidia and Softbank have agreed a $40 billion (£30 billion) deal for UK-based chip manufacturer Arm.

Under the terms of the transaction, Nvidia will pay SoftBank a total of $21.5 billion in common stock and $12 billion in cash, which includes $2 billion payable at signing.

However, the acquisition has been met with some backlash within the industry, and also within the UK's government, over fears Nvidia will move Arm's operations out of Cambridge. Japanese investment group Softbank took over the chipmaker in 2016, and the government at the time mandated that Arm remains in the UK.

On Friday, Ed Miliband called for similar "legally binding assurances" that UK jobs would be protected should Nvidia acquire the company.

Following the announcement of the deal, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that his company "intends to retain the name and strong brand identity" of Arm within the UK and also expand its base in Cambridge.

"Nvidia will build on Arm's R&D presence in the UK, establishing a new global centre of excellence in AI research at Arm's Cambridge campus," Huang said in a statement.

"Nvidia will invest in a state-of-the-art, Arm-powered AI supercomputer, training facilities for developers and a startup incubator, which will attract world-class research talent and create a platform for innovation and industry partnerships in fields such as healthcare, robotics and self-driving cars."

The acquisition of Arm strengthens Nvidia's position in the chip market, particularly against Intel. Reports claim that Arm CPUs will help Nvidia company gain a stronger foothold in the data centre industry.

Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser has slammed the acquisition as "an absolute disaster for Cambridge, the UK and Europe", suggesting that it is anti-competitive.

"Nvidia will destroy ARM's business model," Hauser told BBC Radio 4. "The business model of Arm is being the Switzerland of the semi-conductor industry, of dealing with over 500 licensees, most of which are competitors of Nvidia."

The grand experiment of ARM-powered Windows 10 laptops is slowly starting to creep towards fruition; we’ve already had the Surface Pro X, Microsoft’s own-brand effort, and now Samsung is picking up the baton for third-party manufacturers with the Galaxy Book S.

Built by Samsung in collaboration with Qualcomm, this sleek device aims to establish a beachhead for Windows on ARM and demonstrate exactly what the new platform is capable of. Admittedly, we weren’t particularly wowed by Microsoft’s efforts, but Samsung’s attempt has benefitted from some added refinement, and has a lot more muscle hidden under its slinky chassis.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Design

It’s hard to deny that it’s a slick-looking machine; clad in an aluminium chassis in either a plain - but still professional - silver finish or a bronzed colour that Samsung calls ‘Earthy Gold’, which is subtly striking to look at without being as bold as Apple’s rose-gold MacBooks.

The really eye-catching thing, though, is how slim the device is, with a thickness of less than 12mm. It may not be the thinnest laptop we’ve seen, but it’s certainly up there - and at just 961g, it’s as light as it looks, too.

There are other nice design touches too, such as the way the rear of the lid curves satisfyingly over the hinge, or the way in which the keyboard sits at an almost imperceptible angle. It feels truly luxurious to use. In fact, we’d say it is the most eminently portable machine we’ve seen since the Acer Swift 7.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Display

Samsung is famed for its displays, and if you’re expecting this laptop to knock your socks off in that department, you won’t be disappointed. The 13.3in touchscreen panel only has a 1920 x 1080 resolution, but that’s not a complaint - it’s perfectly adequate for a laptop of this size. Anything more would be overkill, and would unnecessarily drain the battery, to boot.

The technical quality is also virtually flawless. Its 94.5% coverage of the sRGB colour spectrum is capable of handling colour-sensitive work, and a maximum brightness of 378cd/m2 should only be a problem in the brightest of working conditions - although bear in mind that there’s no anti-reflective coating here, so beware the glare.

We should also note that Samsung has trimmed the bezels back in order to maximise screen real estate while minimising the laptop’s footprint, a decision which we commend. It’s another neat touch that adds to the laptop’s premium feel, and the screen makes everything from working on documents to watching video an absolute joy.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Keyboard and trackpad

Document editing is made even more pleasant by the rather wonderful keyboard. The keys themselves are of the low-profile variety that are becoming increasingly popular on high-end laptops, with minimal travel depth and firm, defined response. The Galaxy Book’s keyboard is definitely in the same ballpark as the likes of the Surface Pro and ThinkPad in terms of how satisfying a typing experience it offers - although it stops just short of equalling either.

All the usual mod cons are present and correct, including multi-stage backlighting and a buffet of function keys, and the glass-topped trackpad - which offers a satisfyingly meaty click with each press - is generously sized considering the limited space the trimmed-down chassis has to work with. One slight bugbear is that the keyboard surround is plastic, as opposed to the aluminium used in the rest of the construction, but it’s a comparatively minor gripe.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Software

As an ARM-based laptop, the Galaxy Book S has some proving to do. The concept of Windows 10 on ARM has been talked up by manufacturers, but so far we’ve yet to see anything that really blows our socks off. The Surface Pro X was capable enough, but the lack of full, uncompromised compatibility with traditional x86 apps wasn’t really outweighed by the advantages of a longer battery life or 4G connectivity.

Compatibility will still be an issue for now, sadly - while Microsoft announced in May that support for 64-bit X86 apps (via emulation) is on the way, but for now you’re limited to either native ARM software or emulated 32-bit X86 apps.

As we noted in our Surface Pro X review, that may or may not be an issue for you depending on your software usage. If you’re just after a machine to run Office apps and web browsers, you should be fine, but specialised or legacy applications may throw a spanner or two into the works. It’s not necessarily a deal breaker, though, but it does lose any ARM-based laptop point right out of the gate.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Performance and hardware

Thankfully, the performance is right up there. The Galaxy Book S uses the Snapdragon 8cx SoC, which Qualcomm has developed specifically for notebooks, and it’s comparable with Microsoft’s customised SQ1 chipset which we saw in the Pro X.

That means that any apps that can run will do so without complaint, for the most part - we didn’t experience anything like as many instances of Photoshop and Chrome crashing as we did with the Pro X.

It’s not going to be doing any heavy lifting when it comes to processor-intensive tasks like video editing. But, let’s be honest, expecting an ultraportable like this to tackle anything more demanding than light photo editing is like buying a moped to tow a caravan.

The octa-core CPU acquitted itself admirably in the Geekbench 5 benchmark tests, scoring 699 for single-core operations and 2,721 for multi-core tasks. That’s just a hair behind the Surface Pro X’s scores of 736 and 2,891, and only around 10-15% slower than the Surface Pro 7. It’s also comfortably ahead of the Google Pixelbook Go for multi-threaded processing.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Battery life

This is a respectable level of performance, but it’s not what we would call earth-shattering. The same cannot be said for the battery life, though. We were somewhat skeptical about Samsung’s claims of all-day battery life after our previous experience with the Surface Pro X, but hats off to Samsung - the Galaxy Book S really delivers.

In our video playback tests, it racked up an absolutely jaw-dropping score of 14hrs 28mins; that’s an outstanding score, miles ahead of the vast majority of Windows laptops. Even the comparatively power-efficient Dell Inspiron 14 7000 didn’t manage to crack 14 hours, despite having more room in the chassis for a bigger battery. Compared to the slightly underwhelming Surface Pro X, the Galaxy Book S is a much more impressive example of the capabilities of Windows on ARM.

Even if you do manage to drain the battery, you’re in luck; the Galaxy Book S uses the same kind of USB-C charger as the company’s phones - which means no more lugging around a hefty power brick - and the 25W ‘super fast charging’ will give you an extra 30-40% battery after just an hour’s charging. In fact, the laptop’s low power consumption means that it’s even compatible with the adapters from most high-end smartphones. You may not be able to juice it up in a hurry with a regular smartphone charger, but you can at least keep it ticking over if you haven’t got a proper power source to hand.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Ports and features

Aside from power efficiency, one of the other headline features of Windows on ARM is its support for 4G LTE connectivity. Initially, we didn’t think that we’d get much use out of this functionality, confined as we are to working from home. Thankfully, Virgin Media saw fit to have several prolonged outages while we were reviewing the Galaxy Book S, giving us the perfect opportunity to test out the 4G support.

While the speeds of just under 10Mb/sec delivered by our EE data SIM aren’t quite up to the multi-gigabit figures the Snapdragon 8cx platform is allegedly capable of supporting, we have to confess that it was incredibly handy having an LTE connection to fall back on when regular broadband wasn’t an option. The connection was stable enough to handle everything from multi-tabbed browsing and downloads, to content streaming and videoconferencing.

Other aspects of this laptop’s connectivity, however, are less convenient. There’s a pair of USB-C ports - one on either side - but they’re USB 3.1 rather than full-fat Thunderbolt 3 and apart from a 3.5mm headphone jack, that’s your lot. It does have a fingerprint sensor for biometric authentication via Windows Hello, but there’s no facial recognition due to the lack of an IR camera. In fact, that camera isn't much use for anything - it uses a 720p resolution, but images are so noisy and grainy that it’s hardly worth the bother. On the other hand, you can also expand the 256GB of storage via a microSD card slot.

Samsung Galaxy Book S review: Verdict

After our experiences with the Surface Pro X, we weren’t expecting terribly much from the Samsung Galaxy Book S; a sleek and shiny package, maybe, but with little to recommend it above and beyond similarly-priced Intel-based laptops.

Instead, what we got was a laptop that not only looks amazing and goes toe-to-toe with rivals on performance, but also delivers one of the most staggeringly long-lived batteries we’ve seen - and all for less than £1,000 after tax.

That’s some seriously impressive stuff, and well worth overlooking some lingering compatibility issues for. If this is the future of Windows on ARM, then it can’t come soon enough.

Samsung Galaxy Book S specifications

ARM has hired more than 1,000 new staff members worldwide since it was taken over by SoftBank last year, with a large proportion of these UK-based employees.

The figures provided by SoftBank's UK Takeover Panel suggest the number of employees in ARM's UK operation rose from 1,749 to 2,173, while in the rest of the world, its workforce increased from 2,220 to 2,845, bringing the total number of new staff to 1,049.

This is part of SoftBank's quest to build ARM's presence in the UK, fulfilling a commitment made when it lodged its takeover bid last year. At the time, SoftBank said it would double the number of staff in both the UK and worldwide and although there's still a fairly large recruitment campaign to go in order to hit that number, it has certainly made a dent in fulfilling its promises.

The terms were set out in the UK's new Takeover Code, which have been designed to prevent foreign companies buying up UK businesses and then withdrawing support in the country. Japanese company SoftBank has promised it's committed to the UK and would report what it's done to adhere to the code every year.

Although some of the employees now listed as ARM's were transferred from SoftBank, this is still within the rules set out in the UK's Takeover Code.

In SoftBank's latest report about how it's changed ARM since its acquisition, the company revealed it continues to operate the business from its UK headquarters in Cambridge and it has opened two new offices in the city.

"This progress on undertakings illustrates not only SoftBank's ambition to develop ARM into one of the leading global technology companies, but also its commitment to UK jobs and research and development," a spokesman said.

ARM shareholders have voted overwhelmingly to accept SoftBank's 24 billion takeover offer.

Around 95% of them voted overnight to back the acquisition by the Japanese firm, after ARM's board accepted the cash offer last month.

The 17 a share offer represents a premium of more than 40% on the chip designer's closing price and the deal is expected to complete on 5 September.

SoftBank's owner and chief executive Masayoshi Son gained support from the UK government by making legally binding pledges to double the firm's UK workforce over the next five years and keep its HQ in Cambridge.

But former City minister Lord Myners said the deal was an example of the UK "selling out of our winners".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that if ARM was an American, German, or French company, or a Japanese company, it would not be able to be sold within 60 days.

"There would be a question of national significance and public policy to determine whether we should sell," he said.

He added that control of ARM would now pass to a "very heavily-indebted, very unfocused business in Japan which does not have a good record of buying foreign companies and continuing to invest in them".

Richard Holway, chairman of analyst group TechMarketView, said that since the 1980s all takeovers have "practically all been one way".

"Every quoted (and private) UK tech company is vulnerable. All the way from Imagination to Sage to MicroFocus to Aveva etc with everyone in between. The devaluation of the makes UK companies even more attractive. The US tax rules, making it difficult to repatriate overseas profits, also encourages US companies to acquire in the UK," he said.

He added that conversely, the UK's strength as a place to build and scale a tech company means that knowing you will get an exit is "no bad thing" for investors.

"Maybe that is our destiny - as an incubator of tech companies and serial entrepreneurs. There are probably worse fates," he concluded.

IBM and ARM have unveiled an Internet of Things (IoT) Starter Kit, giving businesses the means to develop prototypes of smart devices using IBM's cloud and ARM's sensor services.

The kit comprises a Freescale-manufactured, mbed-enabled development board featuring ARM's Cortex M4-based processor and some built-in memory to carry out a single task, plus a sensor expansion board with a thermometer, an accelerometer, two potentiometers, a buzzer, a small joystick, an LED light and a rectangle black-and-white LCD display.

The two boards can be fitted together and connected to the internet using an ethernet cable. It can also be connected to a computer with a USB.

ARM will add a public beta of its mbed operating system for IoT devices and its mbed Device Server software to extend the number of commands and boost security.

When the device is up and running, developers can use the device's unique ID to view data in real time on a specially-developed IBM website, where a number of other tools will be available too.

Meg Divitto, vice president for IoT at IBM, said: "In order to make this work for businesses, it needs to be simple to connect physical devices into the cloud, and to build applications and insights around them. IBM Bluemix and the new ARM mbed starter kit are designed to substantially enhance that effort."

Freescale's director of marketing John Dixon said at the launch of the starter kit that it will allow anyone to create new devices with a robust data back end. The platform is scalable too, allowing organisations to produce tens of thousands of individual devices.

The IoT Starter Kit will retail for between 50 and 200.

ARM has acquired Internet of Things (IoT) security company Offspark to boost its expertise in the space.

Offspark developed the PolarSSL secure communications network used by a wide range of IoT devices. It will be embedded into ARM's mbed platform, although both companies are assuring other users it will remain completely open source post-acquisition.

However, the name of the product will be changed to mbed TLS to express new ownership, despite remaining available for commercial use under an Apache 2.0 licence.

Krisztian Flautner, general manager of IoT business for ARM, said: "We have always said that security must be the foundation of any IoT system and the acquisition of Offspark is evidence of us making that happen.

"PolarSSL technology is already deployed by the leading IoT players. The fact that those same companies also utilize ARM Cortex processor and software technologies means we are now able to provide a complete bedrock solution for the industry to innovate from."

The expertise and experience provided by Offspark is apparently the reason ARM made the decision to acquire it, rather than to solely take onboard the PolarSSL security solution.

Paul Bakker, CEO of Offspark, added: "ARM is undeniably the front-runner in the embedded world and combining with them is the perfect way of scaling our business. Security is the most fundamental aspect in ensuring people trust IoT technology and that is only possible with a truly tailored solution.

"Together, ARM and Offspark can provide security to the edge of any system and we look forward to working with our partners to help them deliver some exciting new projects."

ARM's mbed platform, with mbed OS, will be rolled out later in 2015, although an early development platform is already available to selected developers.

Intel doesn't view ARM as a challenger in the server market despite reports Microsoft could make Windows Server commercially available on its hardware.

Dave Hill, senior systems engineer at Intel, claimed that even if Microsoft launches Windows Server on ARM, it will be an unsuccessful experiment.

"In reality Microsoft is trying to [create] a common code base. Obviously they have multiple fragmented code bases and they're trying to put them together," he told IT Pro during a Q&A.

"I think it [Windows Server on ARM] would have similar lines of success as when Windows RT came out on tablets."

Hill claimed that enterprises including Intel have thousands of mission critical applications that rely on x86 hardware.

"Is there a risk? Even if hypothetically Microsoft did announce a Windows Server that supports ARM, where is the Windows market in the server centre? It's generally towards enterprises. You very rarely see Windows Servers being deployed on any cloud service provider [or] in the HPC market," he continued.

"So if you introduce a server platform that doesn't run your existing applications and you're trying to [create] a virtualised environment it's kind of a non-starter in my opinion.

"IT environments are more about trying to simplify and throwing in a different architecture that doesn't run any of the applications just adds so much complexity and overhead that I don't think they would see the benefit of it."

ARM has launched a free operating system aimed at powering Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as well as tools to help developers create them.

The software is offered for free in a bid to boost uptake of IoT products.

The mbed OS is an open source operating system designed to run on ARM's 32-bit Cortex-M and contains security, communication and device management features to enable the development of production-grade, energy-efficient IoT devices, according to the firm.

The OS will also support a number of wireless standards, such as Bluetooth Smart, 2G, 3G, LTE and CDMA cellular technologies, Thread, Wi-Fi, and 802.15.4/6LoWPAN along with TLS/DTLS, CoAP, HTTP, MQTT and Lightweight M2M.

The OS forms part of ARM's mbed IoT Device Platform and also features the mbed Device Server that required server-side technologies to connect and manage devices in a secure way. The firm said this would also provide a bridge between the protocols designed for use on IoT devices and the APIs that are used by web developers.

It claimed this would simplify the integration of IoT devices into cloud frameworks that deploy big data analytics on the aggregated information.

"ARM mbed will make this easier by offering the necessary building blocks to enable our expanding set of ecosystem partners to focus on the problems they need to solve to differentiate their products, instead of common infrastructure technologies. This will accelerate the growth and adoption of the IoT in all sectors of the global economy," said ARM chief executive Simon Segars.

The mbed IoT Device Platform is free for developers and for deployment, supported by an ecosystem of more than 100 OEMs and major chip vendors.

Launch partners for the mbed IoT Device Platform include Atmel, CSR, Ericsson, Farnell, Freescale, IBM, KDDI, Marvell, MegaChips, MultiTech, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Renesas, SeeControl, Semtech, Silicon Labs, Stream Technologies, ST, Telenor Connexion, Telefonica, Thundersoft, u-blox, wot.io and Zebra.

The platform will be available to mbed partners in the last quarter of this year for early development, with the first production devices due in 2015.

HP has unveiled two production-ready servers sporting ARM processors as part of its Project Moonshot portfolio.

The HP Proliant m400, aimed at web server applications, is based on the X-Gene Server on a Chip (SoC) from Applied Micro Circuits.

The server sports a 64-bit ARM chip with eight cores running at up to 2.4GHz. The server comes with Canonical's Ubuntu Linux as well as cloud orchestration tools Juju and Metal-as-a-Service (MAAS) software for automatically provisioning bare metal servers.

The server is designed to save power, cooling and space with HP claiming a 35 per cent reduction in total cost of ownership in comparison to normal rack servers.

HP touted Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Utah as early customers for the m400.

"By giving researchers access to the HP Moonshot platform in our CloudLab facility, we empower them to develop fundamental breakthroughs that have the potential to change the capabilities, performance, reliability, and security of future clouds," said Robert Ricci, research assistant professor of Computer Science, University of Utah.

The second new server is the m800, which sports a 32-bit ARM processor from Texas Instruments which comes with four ARM Cortex A-15 cores, and integrated digital signal processors (DSPs). These servers can be linked together using HP's 2D Torus Mesh Fabric in combination with Serial Rapid I/O.

One of HP's customers already using the m800 is PayPal in its Systems Intelligence project.

"The HP ProLiant m800's combination of ARM and Multicore Digital Signal Processors with high-speed, low-latency networking and tiered memory management creates a very energy efficient, extremely capable parallel processing platform with a familiar Linux interface," said Ryan Quick, principal architect of the Advanced Technology Group at PayPal

Analysts said ubiquitous cloud-enabled smart devices are a driving force behind this shift in IT infrastructure.

"Service providers deploying context-rich services to these devices are building massive new datacenter capacity and looking to their vendors to optimize infrastructure for their specific workloads," said Patrick Moorhead, of Moor Insights and Strategy in a whitepaper published by HP.

Pricing for the 64-bit HP ProLiant m800 starts at $81,651, while pricing for the 32-bit HP ProLiant m400 starts at $58,477.

ARM has revealed its latest processor targeting Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The 32-bit Cortex-M processor claims to allow manufacturers to include more functionality and features into devices, such as next generation vehicles, connected devices, and smart homes and factories.

The Cortex-M7 runs at 400MHz and has a 64-bit Advanced eXtensible Interface(AXI) interconnect with caches for instruction and data allowing access to large external memories and peripherals.

ARM said the chip had a "tightly coupled" memory interface for real-time response and offered twice the performance of its Cortex-M4 and can execute twice as many instructions simultaneously.

With the chip being able to deliver 2000 Coremarks, ARM said this would allow MCU silicon manfacturers to make devices with highly demanding applications while keeping development costs low.

"The addition of the Cortex-M7 processor to the Cortex-M series allows ARM and its partners to offer the most scalable and software-compatible solutions possible for the connected world," said Noel Hurley, general manager of the CPU group at ARM. "The versatility and new memory features of the Cortex-M7 enable more powerful, smarter and reliable microcontrollers that can be used across a multitude of embedded applications."

The chip designer said the update meant it was capable of faster processing of audio and image data and voice recognition which would be immediately apparent to users.

The core also provides the same C-friendly programmer's model and is binary compatible with existing Cortex-M processors, claimed the firm. "Ecosystem and software compatibility enables simple migration from any existing Cortex-M core to the new Cortex-M7. System designers can therefore take advantage of extensive code reuse which in turn offers lower development and maintenance costs."

The chip is available to ARM licensees such as Atmel, Freescale and ST Microelectronics and should find its way into devices by the end of 2015, the firm said.

AMD has revealed its plans to bring together x86 and ARM processor chips as the firm tries to claw back market share.

Project SkyBridge represents the firm's first steps towards a much touted culture of "ambidextrous computing" with the introduction of 20nm x86 and ARM SoCs that are fully pin-compatible with each other.

Essentially, a motherboard will be able to take either ARM or x86 chips depending on the user's preference, with the possibility of switching back without hardware repercussions.

Demand for x86, according to the firm, has peaked, while the market for ARM chips is still growing. In 2015 AMD will be releasing its own ARM processing chips based on Cortex-A57 cores, before rolling its first custom-designed core (named K12) off of the line in 2016.

AMD has declined to clarify which market the new chip might be used for, instead saying that it would be an approach to a wide variety. New chief executive Rory Read told of how the company is "transforming" in a remake focusing on semi-custom chips for game consoles, servers and other smaller markets with growth potential.

"AMD now takes a bold step forward and has become the only company that can provide high-performance 64-bit ARM and x86 CPU cores paired with world-class graphics." Read said.

Versatility could be keen for AMD, which has seen its market share steadily decline since a peak of 26 per cent in 2006. That figure has now dropped to just 2.8 per cent in Q1 2014.

"We've done servers, we've done high frequency, we've done scalability," Jim Keller, the head of the design team on the AMD K12, said.

"With ARM, we can extend the range."

Calxeda, one of the driving forces behind the embryonic ARM server movement, has shut down as its coffers have dried up, according to a report.

The chip maker, founded in 2008, had been handed over $90 million in venture capital funding over the last five years, but further attempts to bring in more money have been fruitless, according to sources speaking with AllThingsD.

Many of the 125-strong team are expected to be made redundant, even as their bosses said the firm was going through a "restructuring", rather than confirming Calxeda was done.

"Carrying the load of industry pioneer has exceeded our ability to continue to operate as we had envisioned," read a note from Karl Freund, Calxeda's vice president of marketing, and president Barry Evans.

"We wanted to let you know that Calxeda has begun a restructuring process Calxeda is proud of what we have accomplished, the partners who have collaborated with us, the investors who supported us, and the visionary customers who have encouraged us and inspired us along the way."

Sources have indicated others interested in ARM-based servers, such as Dell and HP, could be lining up patent acquisitions from Calxeda.

ARM, a Calxeda investor as well as partner, said it is hoping Calxeda technology survives, but still believes in the future for servers based on its designs.

"As an innovator Calxeda successfully demonstrated the benefits of efficient ARM-based servers and we are hopeful their restructuring can preserve the technology that they developed," said Lakshmi Mandyam, director of server systems and ecosystems at ARM, in an emailed statement sent to IT Pro.

"Many other companies are now developing solutions around ARM spanning a range of workloads and goals, so regardless today's news doesn't change our commitment to, or outlook on the server market."

ARM designs, as they are built for low-power, super-efficient machines, are seen as ideal for the hyper-scale market, where thousands of servers are needed on an ad hoc basis. The ARM server industry is yet to take off, however, with Intel x86 designs still dominant.

Chips using ARM's 64-bit technology will be built at an Intel foundry thanks to a third party vendor, Altera.

The Stratix 10 SoC chipset marks the first time a processor will combine Intel's 14n Tri-Gate process with the Cambridge-based firm's 64-bit Cortex technology.

Despite Intel struggling to gain traction in the mobile market, the chip giant has downplayed reports that this is a significant development.

"Altera's plans to incorporate an ARM core in its Stratix 10 FPGA does not change anything, we are enabling them with the industry's best manufacturing capability and second generation Tri-Gate transistors," Intel said in a statement to IT Pro.

"We have said that we will be open to manufacturing competitive architectures. This is part of a pre-existing foundry agreement, and we're not worried about what core they are using for the general purpose FPGAs."

Although Intel is making a big push mobile market with its latest Atom architecture (codenamed Bay Trail), ARM is the dominant force in this area. Chip designs from the Cambridge-based firm are licensed to prominent vendors including Nvidia, Samsung and Qualcomm.

Apple's A-series processor range, which is used to power iPhones and iPads is also based on ARM architecture. The A7 processor, introduced in the iPhone 5s was also the first 64-bit to be used in a smartphone.

However, Intel, which is still the world's biggest semi-conductor firm will look to turn the tables on competitors with the introduction of of its Software-Defined-Radio (SDR) technology.

SDR will support multiple wireless standards simply by updating the software - and without the need to make changes to the hardware. Intel claims this will reduced cost-of-ownership, allow products to get to market faster and increase economies-of-scale when compared to classical baseband products.

ARM CEO Warren East is set to retire on 30 June after 12 years at the helm of the Cambridge-based semi-conductor firm.

East originally joined ARM in 1994 to establish the firm's consulting business and was appointed to the position of CEO within three years. In the decade East has been in charge of ARM, the firm has created some of the most sought after semiconductor IP in the world. Chips based on the ARM design are found in almost all the mobile/tablet products in the market ranging from low-end handsets to popular devices such as the Apple iPhone.

Under the leadership of East, ARM has seen all key indicators increase (as seen below). He leaves the firm on a solid financial footing with the firm currently generating $913 million in revenue up from $213 million in 2001.

In a statement East noted that it had been a privilege to lead ARM during an exciting time for the industry.

"I am proud of what the ARM team of employees and partners has achieved together while I have been CEO; ARM is a great company with a strong market position and a unique culture," he noted.

"We take a very long-term view about our business, and we believe that now is the right time to bring in new leadership, to execute on the next phase of growth and to plan even further into the future."

Simon Segars who is currently president of ARM and has worked at the company for 22 years will take over as CEO form the 1 July. Segars held a range of senior positions including head of engineering and has been leading the sales team.

Intel's Next Unit of Computing (NUC) brings X86 processing power in its smallest form factor yet and IT Pro looks at how the NUC compares to the Raspberry Pi, which uses an ARM-based SoC design.

This isn't a traditional head-to-head. We didn't run the devices through a battery of benchmarks - primarily as the winner would be obvious. Plus the devices have two different aims.

The Pi has been developed by non-for-profit charity for use by enthusiasts and to help children learn to program. The NUC is more of a traditional commercial proposal aimed at those who want to be able to carry around PC power in the palm of their hand.

So what's the point of this? With ARM chips making the transition over to tablet/laptop computing, and Intel looking to enter the mobile market, these sorts of battles are going to become increasingly common. We take a look at the implemention of these devices and how they are likely to be used.

Hardware

The first generation Raspberry Pi is powered by a Broadcom BCM2835 SoC with a moderate 700MHz clock speed - in real-world terms this is equivalent to a mid-range smartphone. The Pi has 512MB of RAM and is designed to be bootable from an SD card.

The Pi is usable out-of-the-box, but its System-on-Chip (SoC) design means that components are soldered on and cannot be upgraded.

Meanwhile, the Intel NUC is powered by an Intel Core i3 3127U (dual-core 64-bit running at 1.8GHz) and there is support for 2 x SO-DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3 1,600MHz RAM. Ironically, the NUC is not ready to use immediately. Users will have to fit in the RAM, SSD and Wi-Fi adapter - but this does make it upgradeable.

In terms of ports there is little to differentiate the devices. The Pi features two USB 2 ports, HDMI output, composite video output and 3.5mm audio jack and an Ethernet socket. Intel's DC3217BY motherboard has three USB 2 ports, a HDMI output and a Thunderbolt socket. It doesn't pack an R45 jack either, which limits the functionality.

Intel's decision to stick with USB 2 is surprising and while a Thunderbolt socket offers promise of high bandwidth connectivity to hard drives and a second display output, currently devices that use the Thunderbolt interface are few and far between and come at a substantial premium.

The Raspberry Pi offers remarkably good connectivity options and the inclusion of a hardware Ethernet port is a boon. Wireless connectivity can also be added through a USB dongle.

While Intel's NUC is powered by a laptop-style power brick, the Raspberry Pi can be powered from a single USB port though, a USB power adaptor such as those used to charge smartphones is recommended.

Nevertheless the fact remains that the Raspberry Pi's power adaptor can be bought for 6 for those that don't already have one lying around and is smaller and lighter than a laptop power brick.

Ultimately Intel's NUC DC3217BY will win on just about every CPU, memory and storage benchmark thrown at it but in terms of what can be connected to the two devices and the expansion potential, the Raspberry Pi does better than the NUC.

The Lowdown

The Raspberry Pi is incredible value for money. Despite being 25, the device packs slightly better connectivity than the NUC, with key features such as the Ethernet jack included.

Meanwhile, the NUC is over 10x the amount. It costs 220 ex VAT - but you have to add on the cost of RAM, an SSD and Wi-Fi adaptor. Intel has failed to make use of USB 3 compatibility, instead choosing to go with USB 2 and Thunderbolt technology.

Desktop use

The killer blow for most users is that the Raspberry Pi cannot run Microsoft Windows due to its ARM-based chip. However, there is no shortage of Linux distributions that run on the device and support its various hardware features. Best of all they are all free.

For those that want to do web browsing with Mozilla Firefox or Chromium, playback 720p resolution video and send emails using Thunderbird the Raspberry Pi is fine. We found the Pi showed its hardware weaknesses when a background process had a spike in which it consumed considerable processing power while another task in the foreground was taking place.

Despite its moderate specs, the Pi is well suited to custom projects as can be seen below:

Intel's NUC can run Microsoft's Windows 7 and Windows 8 without any problem. This will make it a massive selling point as it allows legacy apps such as the Office suite to run natively.

Intel's NUC can run Linux and popular distributions such as Canonical's Ubuntu run well out of the box. The Raspberry Pi's weaknesses as a full-blown desktop machine appear when a number of applications are open due to it only possessing 512MB RAM, while the NUC can support up to 16GB RAM. Couple that to the fact that the Raspberry Pi features a single-core 700MHz results in a considerable performance hit when two or more CPU-head processes are run.

Although Intel's NUC has a far more expensive and faster processor, it won't be topping any benchmark tests. Intel's biggest selling point for all its processors against ARM is the ability to run Microsoft's Windows operating system.

By Intel's standards the Core i3 chip in the NUC is low-end, but the system can run demanding applications such as Adobe Photoshop. Running software programs such The Gimp on a Raspberry Pi is an exercise in anger management. Of course the Pi was never designed to run a graphics editing application but that the NUC can do it through hardware and software support is certainly a plus a point.

The lowdown

The Pi struggles when it comes to using heavy duty apps. However, it is able to handle browsing and video playback tasks relatively comfortably.

Intel's NUC is more akin to a traditional PC. It's able to run Microsoft's Windows, which for many is a deal breaker on the Raspberry Pi, no matter what its price. For businesses that rely on Microsoft's Office suite there are few, if any, devices of similar size better suited to such workloads.

Video playback

The Raspberry Pi isn't quite the high-definition media centre for 25 that we would have loved but it's close. The Raspberry Pi can play back video at 1080p resolution without any problems. However when high bit-rate multi-channel audio track is added there is often problems with dropped frames.

As the Raspberry Pi user has access to a plethora of Linux distributions the easiest way to turn a Pi into a home theatre viewer is by installing XBMC to access media held on network attached storage. Installation is painless and the XBMC's feature set is arguably the best out there thanks to continual evolution of the software.

Network connectivity issues aside, Intel's NUC is a far more capable video player.

Intel's NUC can handle 1080p resolution video playback with multi-channel audio without any problems at all and with very little noise coming from the cooling fan. We tried it on both Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu Linux and playback was smooth with no discernible quality problems. Again Intel's decision not to include an Ethernet socket is the main problem, meaning that 802.11n Wi-Fi is the bare minimum for those that want to stream high quality 1080p resolution movies.

Network connectivity issues aside, Intel's NUC is a far more capable video player for those that want to watch Blu-ray movies at native resolution with multi-channel audio. For those with more modest home cinema setups that can live with 720p resolution video being pushed to two speakers then the Raspberry Pi can just about cut the mustard, but for those that want more the NUC is the device of choice.

The Lowdown

Intel's Core i3 and HD Graphics 4000 provides the grunt that is needed to pump out high resolution video and multi-channel audio without dropping frames, whilst the Raspberry Pi can be hit and miss.

Potential BYOD machine

Both Intel's NUC and the Raspberry Pi can be carried to and from work in a pocket. The Raspberry Pi easily fits in the palm of any person above the age of 12 and while Intel's NUC is bigger, it can easily fit into a briefcase, bag or rucksack and not add considerable weight.

With Intel's NUC and the Raspberry Pi using HDMI and USB to connect monitors and peripherals respectively, plugging either device in at the desk takes no more than a few seconds. Booting up Intel's NUC takes less time primarily due to the SSD storage but the Raspberry Pi can get onto the desktop far sooner than it takes you to bring that first cup of tea back to the desk.

However it is Intel's decision to go with an SSD that is screwed inside of the NUC's case that gives the Raspberry Pi its edge as BYOD machine. The Raspberry Pi, along with the many third party cases available, offer easy access to the Secure Digital (SD) memory card that holds the device's operating system and any data should the user not use remote storage.

Given the Raspberry Pi's price, keeping a device at home and at work is still considerably cheaper than buying a NUC. By simply slotting in an SD card at either end, one can transport their environment to another location turning the Raspberry Pi from a BYOD device to simply a bring your own SD card device.

The Lowdown

The Raspberry Pi's size and the fact that its storage can be removed in a matter of seconds makes it highly portable and when coupled to its low price, as close to a commodity PC as you can get.

Verdict

Intel's NUC shows just what can be done with a low-end Core i3 processor and for firms the ability to run Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows 8 may rule out the Raspberry Pi completely. As general office desktop machine both the NUC and the Raspberry Pi are able to cope just fine but with the NUC there's more than enough headroom for CPU intensive tasks, something the Raspberry Pi lacks. However, the price escalates quickly and it may be worth investing in a tablet or laptop instead. The Raspberry Pi does very well with its hardware and as a device that can truly be used anywhere thanks to its size and the ability to transport the user environment by plugging in an SD card. However, for those who want to do serious workloads with a small computer Intel's NUC, despite its considerable price difference, is the one we would go for...although we'd probably get a Pi to sit on top.

Raspberry Pi: Chipset: Broadcom BCM2835 SoC with 700MHz clock speed Operating system: Linux RAM: 256MB Storage: SD card Connections: 2x USB ports, 1x Ethernet port, 1x HDMI, 1x Audio jack, 1x microUSB power supply Intel NUC: Barebone system with CPU, cooling, case and power adapter supplied CPU: Intel Core i3 3127U (dual-core 64-bit running at 1.8GHz) GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4000 (integrated into CPU) RAM: 2x SO-DIMM slots supporting dual-channel DDR3 1,600MHz Expansion slots: 2 mini PCI-Express (1 full length, 1 half-length) External connectivity: 3x USB 2 ports, 1x Thunderbolt port, 1x Kensington Lock Dimensions (including case): 4.59in x 4.41in x 1.50in 65W external power adapter

Samsung has been working on an 8-core mobile processor that uses ARM's big.LITTLE architecture, as the Korean firm fights to keep ahead of rivals Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm.

The Exynos 5 Octa will have two sets of four cores. A group of four low-voltage Cortex-A7 processors, designed to handle low-powered tasks such as calls, texting or music playback.

Meanwhile, four ARM Cortex-A15 chips will kick in to tackle high-powered tasks such as HD streaming, HD video recording and gaming.

Samsung claims the ability to share workloads between these processors will increase battery life by up to 70 per cent compared to its Exynos 5 Dual processor.

The firm hasn't announced clock speeds or the GPU that will accompany the processor, but the chip will be created using the 28nm lithographic process.

The Korean firm isn't the first manufacturer to use this type of workload-splitting implementation.

Nvidia included a quad-core configuration for high-end tasks and a single companion core for basic ones in its Tegra 3 chipset.

The processor was included in a number of high-end devices such as the HTC One X and Google Nexus 7, but it was plagued by poor battery life and was outperformed by even Intel's x86 based single-core Atom Z2460.

Nvidia has tinkered with this design and claims its latest Tegra 4 processor, which also packs a quad-core A15 configuration, will give twice the performance of the Tegra 3 and use 45 per cent less power.

It will be interesting to see if Samsung devices using the Exynos 5 Octa experience any battery life issues, as there is the potential that the multiple cores could burn through power.

Samsung's Exynos 4 processor topped our charts when benchmarked, beating out efforts from dedicated chip makers Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm. It wouldn't be a major surprise to see the Exynos 5 Octa continue this trend.

With Samsung's chip announcement at CES, reports have already started circulating that the Exynos 5 Octa will debut in the forthcoming Galaxy S4.

Nvidia has taken the wraps off its next-generation mobile processor, which will be known as the Tegra 4.

The chipmaker not only claims its quad-core processor is the world's fastest mobile CPU, but is capable of providing up to 14 hours of video playback on a smartphone.

The Tegra 4 (codenamed Wayne) combines 72 custom-built Nvidia GPU cores and four of ARM's latest Cortex A15 CPU cores. The result, Nvidia claims, is over twice the performance when it comes to tasks such as web browsing.

Nvidia claims up to 14 hours of HD video playback on smartphones.

There is also a fifth "battery saver core", which is designed for low-power tasks such active standby, music, and video playback.

Nvidia has worked hard to cut down power consumption, which was one of the main problems with its predecessor. Nvidia suggests the Tegra 4 will consume 45 per cent less power than the popular Tegra 3.

The firm also claims to have made a key advancement in the area of mobile photography via Computational photography architecture. The chip maker says it combines the processing power of the CPU, GPU, and image sensor to enable users to take high-dynamic range (HDR) photos and video instantly.

Other core features include optional support for 4K ultra-high-definition video.

The Tegra 4 will also be able to offer LTE connectivity. However, Nvidia has not managed to integrate this directly onto the Tegra 4 and a companion chip will be required to make use of high-speed connectivity.

With almost all high-end tablets and smartphones set to include support for LTE in 2013, the lack of on-board integration could hurt uptake of the Tegra 4.

Device manufacturers may choose to go with rivals, in particular Qualcomm, which is tipped to have successfully integrate LTE technology onto a single chip with its next-gen processors. These are set to be unveiled in the Spring.

In the IT Pro smartphone processor test, the Nvidia Tegra 3 didn't fare well against the likes of Intel Atom and Samsung Exynos.

We concluded the poor performance was due to design deficiencies, and the firm aimed to mask this via the quad-core layout and high graphics clock speed (520MHz). However, the part was the oldest on test and we expected performance to significantly improve with the Tegra 4.

No partners have been named yet, and despite the LTE conundrum, we still expect to see the Tegra 4 used in high-profile Android and Windows RT devices this year.

The Tegra 3 was found in high-end devices such as the HTC One X and the breakthrough Android tablet - the Google Nexus 7. The latest chip could feature in the sequel to such devices.

Apple is believed to thinking about moving away from using Intel chips in its Mac range as it considers unifying the architecture across its device portfolio.

The firm already licenses designs from ARM, which it uses to make own chipsets for the popular iPhone and iPad range. However, its MacBook and Mac line ups are powered by the more powerful Intel's x86-based processors.

Apple engineers are mooting the possibility that one architecture could be used for the entire line-up of devices, multiple sources have told Bloomberg.

The main benefit of moving to a unified architecture would be that the same applications can be shared across different devices, without the need to re-coding or using an emulator.

Despite the reports, it remains to be seen whether Apple would ditch Intel having just signed an agreement in 2005 to use processors in the Mac.

The switch in architecture could potentially work the other way also as Intel is aggressively pushing into the mobile market. Former CEO Steve Jobs actually wanted to use Intel processors in the original iPhone, but was convinced by engineers that ARM chips would be more appropriate to use in mobile devices as they were more efficient at the time.

Additionally, the advantage ARM chips had in terms of efficiency seems to have been eroded, and it only had the advantage in terms of apps ecosystem.

Intel's latest 2GHz Atom-based SoC debuted in the Motorola Razr i and has provided performance which is on the same level as the dual-core ARM-based rivals. The Intel chipset is also capable of providing all-day battery life, which was a factor Intel had struggled with previously.

The firms declined to comment on the rumours and speculation.

Microsoft Surface RT launches today and we give you a rundown of exactly what to expect from the tablet/laptop hybrid.

First off it's important to emphasise that Surface RT tablets are NOT running the full version of Windows 8 so they will not be able to support legacy applications.

Instead the operating system used is Windows RT, which is Microsoft's answer to Apple iOS mobile operating system. Just like the iPad, functionality on the Surface RT will come primarily through using apps and surfing the web.

To get you started Microsoft will ship the Surface RT with a handful of apps:

Office Home/Student 2013 RT Preview which is made up of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote,

Internet Explorer 10,

Windows Mail,

Messaging,

Xbox Music, Games and Video

Microsoft didn't give an exact figure about how many apps will be in the Windows Store at launch, but claimed that 100s of apps are added everyday and this will continue to increase.

What about the size?

The Surface tablet isn't small it's more akin to netbook with a touchscreen. Ironically, all major tablet manufacturers such as Amazon, Apple and Google are launching devices with screen sizes between 7 8ins, but Microsoft is entering the market with a large 10.6in device.

The display supports multitouch and has a resolution of 1366 x 768. Microsoft has gone with the sensible 16:9 display ratio.

The sheer size of the display means the RT is not going to be light either. The RT weighs in at 680g. That's like carrying two iPad mini devices (308g) and then some.

However, Panos Panay, Microsoft's head of Surface explained in detail why this size was chosen, during the launch event in New York. The display was "designed from the ground up" to accommodate all the unique components for Surface and to provide a comfortable multitasking experience, he said.

Microsoft has also used Cleartype display technology, which Panay claimed provides the most realistic blacks and whites and has barely any reflection, even in well lit environments. Microsoft has used Gorilla Glass 2 and Panay even dropped the Surface RT during his presentation from shoulder height to demonstrate how rugged it is.

Unique features

Microsoft is touting the strength of the screen, thanks to Clear bonding technology. The firm cheekily attached skateboard wheels to an otherwise unmodified Surface and showed Steven Sinofsky, president of Windows riding around on it.

There is a kickstand on the back, which allow users to place the device upright on a table during meetings or during the commute.

However, perhaps the most unique feature is the Touch Cover, which doubles as a pressure sensitive keyboard. Panay noted that it will take "four or five days" to get used to the keyboard, but once you've adjusted you should be able to touch type.

The Touch Cover clips into place with magnetic connectors which are strong enough to allow you to hold the device upside down. However, the Touch Cover is not included in the base price and the Surface RT will cost 479 if you want it included.

Performance

Microsoft has used an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor to power the Surface RT. This has been found in high-end smartphones such as the HTC One X and tablet such as the Google Nexus 7. The chip will be supported by 2GB of RAM.

With a 32GB or 64GB SSD available, boot times and search times will be faster than traditional laptops. We've seen a Samsung Windows 8 tablet boot up in eight seconds flat - so the Surface should be able to replicate this.

Whilst performance shouldn't be a problem, this is the first time that the desktop Windows platform has been shipped on ARM-based architecture, so it's not going to be perfect.

Connectivity

Being a Windows-based device the Surface RT includes a few ports which are found on Ultrabooks. The device has a full-sized USB 2.0 connection, microSDXC card reader and HD video out port.

The 9mm chassis doesn't have enough space for an Ethernet port though so you'll have to rely on Wi-Fi connectivity. The device also supports Bluetooth, so you can connect up peripherals.

In total, 420 million existing hardware peripherals including mice keyboard, displays and printers will be supported by RT.

Battery life and price

Microsoft hasn't given concrete figures about the battery life, preferring to use terms such as "all day" usage. We expect the Surface RT to offer between 8 10 hours. The firm has noted that it will have ultra fast charging times too with Panay noting that the Surface will charge in 2 hours, even it is being used.

Prices start at 399 for the 32GB edition, which is the same price as the 16GB Wi-Fi only iPad. This rises to 479 if you want the Touch Cover and 559 for the 64GB edition (with Touch Cover).

Verdict

Microsoft has taken a bold move by launching the Surface RT. However, Panos Panay, head of Surface put across a compelling use case for the device during his presentation. If the Windows Store can grow quickly to provide apps, Microsoft could have the making of a successful product.

Open source campaigner Bruce Perens has declared Intel's forthcoming Clover Trial chip a business and technical "dead-end".

Writing on his blog, Perens said Intel had limited any chance of success with the silicon chip by shutting out Linux and other open source operating systems.

The power management being used on the Atom chip to make it run longer under Windows was not "magic", he stressed, and it only provides a quarter of the power efficiency of the ARM processors that run iOS and Android devices.

Perens pointed out that subsequent chips from Intel and others will offer these features to Linux developers.

These power features are not being shared with open source developers, according to Perens, and would kill any chance of the chip's success.

Perens said the architecture of Clover Trial was not right for portable devices with limited power.

To fix that problem, Intel has built a hidden core within the chip that actually runs RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) instructions, while providing the CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) instruction set that software like Microsoft Windows expects.

"But this doesn't approach ARM's power efficiency," claimed Perens.

He warned the chip is handicapped by the presence of PowerVR graphics, also known as SGX and Intel GMA 500, which he claims "doesn't play well with Linux developers."

Clover Trail's future lies with Windows 8 tablets, because these are the only devices available to the processor, given the lack of Linux support, he asserted.

He added Clover Trail offered "nothing new, or even anything that Intel is likely to re-use in future chips."

ARM is confident it will withstand a marketing onslaught from Intel, by focusing on delivering power efficient mobile chipsets and retaining high-profile customers.

The Cambridge-based manufacturer claims that although it expects Intel to make a big push in the mobile market, it has the partners to keep its lead.

"Our customers such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Samsung have big budgets to compete with Intel's marketing. At present we find that consumers are going with brands they recognise [Apple and Samsung] rather making a purchasing decision based on the chip inside," Nandan Nayampally, director of CPU product marketing told IT Pro.

Nayampally also rebuffed Intel's previous claims about Android not being optimised for multi-core chipsets. However, he did admit it was hard to judge which ARM-based chip on the market provides the best performance.

"Android is based on Linux, which has utilised multi-processing for a long time. The plethora of devices with multi-core are not an accident there are more and more apps utilising them to improve performance and efficiency," he said.

"ARM provides tools for manufacturers to create chipsets. Performance-wise you can get varying results everyone does their own tests and some chips will be better in some areas than others despite the difference in cores.

ARM aims to consolidate its position in the mobile market as partners ship devices with the big.Little architecture in early 2013, he added.

The system will use a low-power Cortex-A7 core to run features less intensive task such as social media apps and audio playback.

Meanwhile, a Cortex-A15 chip will kick in when users need to run heavy duty applications such as web browsing, navigation and gaming. These chipsets can be combined to have dual-core and quad-core configurations.

In an attempt to offer business users a direct rival to the Apple iPad and MacBook Air, Microsoft will be releasing two Windows 8 tablets under the 'Surface' moniker.

The Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro models have been designed in-house by Microsoft. We take a look at the tablet/laptop hybrid to see what users can expect when they launch later this year.

Form factor

Surface tablets will have a hybrid form factor. When closed they will resemble an Ultrabook. However, they can be detached from the the keyboard and used as a standard tablet much like the Asus Transformer Prime.

The Windows 8 Pro device will come with a 10.6in ClearType Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) Gorilla Glass 2 display, making it almost an inch larger than the iPad (9.7in). Windows RT models will have the same 10.6in form factor, but will come with a slightly lower 1,366 x 768 resolution.

The Windows 8 Surface tablet has a flexible from factor so it can be used as a tablet or laptop

Microsoft has used VaporMg (pronounced Vapor-Mag) technology for the chassis, which the firm says mimics the feel of a luxury watch. The Windows 8 Pro device will weigh in at 903g and be 13.5mm thick. Meanwhile, the Windows RT edition will be the lighter (676g) and thinner (9.3mm) of the two devices.

Specifications

The Windows 8 Pro model will be powered by an Intel Ivy Bridge processor, giving the device a performance to rival an Ultrabook's. The chassis will have a built-in microSDXC slot, USB 3.0 port, mini DisplayPort connector, as well as 2x2 MIMO antennaes for wireless connectivity. Microsoft will offer a choice of 64GB or 128GB of internal storage.

The Windows RT model will run on an ARM-based NVIDIA Tegra chip, with either 32GB or 64GB of storage available. Integrated features will include a microSD slot, micro HD connector, 2x2 MIMO antennae, but these devices will support USB 2.0 initially.

The specifications suggest the Windows 8 Pro tablet will go head-to-head with the MacBook Air range and the Windows RT device aims to provide an alternative to the iPad.

Integrated kickstand

Microsoft has added some nifty features to Surface. The integrated kickstand will allow the devices to be place on a desk without having to connect them to a keyboard. This will make it particularly useful to business users, as the tablet can be used alongside another device on a desk.

The kickstand allows the device to be placed on flat surfaces without the need for the dock

Touch Cover

Microsoft could have out-foxed Apple with the inclusion of the Touch Cover. Not only does the cover help to protect the screen, it includes pressure-sensitive technology, allowing users to type on it. The Touch Cover connects to Surface via a built-in magnetic connector.

Microsoft will also offer a 5mm Type Cover, an add on that will provide a raised surface to mimic the keys on a a traditional keyboard.

Multiple Touch Covers will be available allowing customisation

There will be a range of colours available so users will be able to customise their device and Microsoft will be able to generate an additional source of revenue through the sale of accessories.

Battery

No estimates have been given by Microsoft with regards to battery life. Microsoft has only gone on record as stating the Windows 8 Pro model will come with a 42 W-h battery and the RT edition will feature a 31.5 W-h pack.

It remains to be seen whether the Surface tablet can provide double digit battery life. Considering Windows 8 will support Flash, Metro apps and have a fully functional keyboard, it seems unlikely the Pro version will be able to. With ARM architecture, the Windows RT tablet should have the edge when it comes to longevity.

Pricing and availability

Windows RT Surface tablets will be released with the general availability of Windows 8. Microsoft has said the Windows 8 Pro model will be available approximately 90 days later.

No UK release or pricing details have been confirmed, but the ARM-device will be the cheaper of the two.

Microsoft has gone on record as saying that "suggested retail pricing will be announced closer to availability and is expected to be competitive with a comparable ARM tablet or Intel Ultrabook-class PC".

Microsoft has also noted that third-party Windows 8 tablets will have similar features and will also be priced in the same region as Surface devices.

Verdict

Microsoft has made a bold move by debuting the Surface tablets, especially as it could disrupt relations with OEMs. The Surface tablets have unique features including the Kickstand, and Touch Cover, which could make them attractive alternatives to the iPad and MacBook Air.

Support for Windows legacy apps and Office 15 will no doubt be a major draw for enterprises. If the pricing is low enough, the Surface range could kick off mass adoption of Windows 8 within the enterprise.

Microsoft has been waxing lyrical about the business benefits of its soon-to-be launched ARM-powered Windows 8 tablets, as the hype surrounding the release of its next operating system grows.

During a conference call with journalists yesterday, Erwin Visser, senior director of the Windows Commercial Business Group, repeatedly stressed the enterprise friendliness of Windows 8.

For every business need, there will be a Windows 8 device to support it.

"It's the only [operating system] platform in the world that gives [users] the large and unique choice their business requires," said Visser.

"For every business need, there will be a Windows 8 device to support it."

Turning his attention to the range of tablet devices Windows 8 will run on, Visser said the firm's OEM partners are working on a range of vertical-specific form factors.

These include devices that can be easily sanitised for use by hospital workers and ruggedised tablets for telco engineers to use in the field, for example.

"Customers have been telling us that Windows 8 tablets are the [ones] they've been waiting for...and they work very well with their existing [Windows 7] infrastructure," said Visser.

Despite analysts describing the ARM-powered Windows 8 tablet, Windows RT, as a consumer device, Visser insisted the product would be a good fit for business users.

The reason for this is because Windows RT tablets will be "thin, light and sleek" and also boast a long battery life," he claimed.

These features should make the devices appeal to airline staff, who need tablets to deliver in-flight services, as well as field-based engineers and retail store workers.

"Following our conversations with customers, we [also] believe these devices will be [a good choice] for companies that let employees bring their own devices to work," he added.

One of the reasons analysts have previously dismissed RT as a consumer product is because the devices are incompatible with x86 desktop applications. However, Microsoft has found a way round this, revealed Visser.

"Windows desktop apps and Windows 7 apps will not run natively [on Windows RT] but we will still offer customers the opportunity to get access to those apps...using remote desktop services," he said.

"We can also give Windows RT full and seamless access to a host of Windows instants running in the datacentre or a particular desktop application using a technology called Remote App.

"Relative to other ARM devices, Windows RT will be the most compatible ARM offering in the marketplace," he added.

Microsoft will allow buyers of Windows 7 PCs to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99 from 2 June.

The promotion is designed to prevent a slump in PC sales before the launch of the latest iteration of Microsoft's operating system.

In the past, the software giant has offered users free OS upgrades, according to Paul Thurrott from the Supersite for Windows Blog.

The timing of the offer is set to coincide with the release of the final Windows 8 Release Preview.

"Instead of offering a free upgrade to the version of Windows 8 that most closely matches the version of Windows 7 a user buys with a new PC, Microsoft will [be] offering only the higher-end Windows 8 Pro," he noted.

"The timing of the offer coincides roughly with the release of the final Windows 8 pre-release milestone, the so-called Release Preview, which Microsoft previously said was due in the first week of June."

There is no word yet on how much the offer is expected to cost in the UK, but similar pricing is expected. The offer could be attractive for SMBs who are considering upgrading their PCs.

Microsoft is expected to launch the Windows 8 in the second half of 2012.

Windows 8 Pro has the most comprehensive feature set for everyday users, but also has business functionality. The operating system will support BitLocker and BitLocker To Go and Client Hyper-V. It will also boast Remote Desktop functionality and allow users to boot from a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD).

A number of tablets are expected to be released as Microsoft has optimised the platform for touch screens with the Metro UI and Windows RT is compatible with energy efficient ARM-based chips.

You may have heard about the tasty Raspberry Pi. The single-board computer sent websites crashing when it was put on pre-order for just 29, in February.

The not-for-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation has overcome manufacturing difficulties and regulatory issues to finally start shipping units to the 250,000 eager consumers who have placed an order.

The brainchild of Broadcom engineer Dr. Eben Upton and software developer David Braben, the credit-card sized board is more than just a new gadget for the masses. The Pi could potentially herald a second revolution in UK home computing by recreating the micro computing boom of the 1980s. We take a look at the opportunities the Pi brings.

The Raspberry Pi packs around four times more multimedia decoding performance than Apple's iPhone 4

Low-cost development

The most obvious impact of the Raspberry Pi's launch is in providing a low-cost development platform for businesses. Interest in the ARM platform has grown exponentially as smartphones and tablets based on the British firms architecture continue to dominate the market.

Companies are increasingly looking to develop products based on ARM IP and even Microsoft has got in on the action with the impending launch of the Windows RT operating system, later this year.

To develop an ARM-based product, you need a development board. A typical board, such as the Qualcomm Dragonboard or Samsung Origen, costs several hundred pounds - and to avoid bottlenecks, you're going to be buying one per developer.

With large firms typically having several teams of between five to 10 developers working on separate, this gets costly. It's possible to cut back on capital expenditure by purchasing a smaller number of development boards and relying on emulation for other developers, but this is never as efficient as having the real hardware to hand.

The Raspberry Pi costs just 29 in the UK and $35 elsewhere and the package includes a remarkably powerful system that is suitable for all members of the development team.

Based on a Broadcom system-on-chip processor, the Raspberry Pi is no larger than a credit card, but packs around four times more multimedia decoding performance than Apple's iPhone 4.

Software developers gain access to a low-cost processor with powerful video decoding and 3D rendering capabilities. Hardware developers can make use of 26-pin general-purpose input-output (GPIO), MIPI camera and Display Serial Interconnect (DSI) connectors as well as on-board USB, HDMI and analogue audio.

The Broadcom BCM2835 SoC is based on ARMv6 architecture

By reducing capital expenditure on hardware and removing the need for inefficient system emulation, the Pi has the potential to significantly reduce time-to-market and project costs.

However, the low cost also counts against the Pi. The Broadcom BCM2835 SoC is based on the previous-generation ARMv6 instruction set architecture, which makes it a relatively outdated device. With most manufacturers standardising on the ARMv7-based Cortex family, the Pi isn't a drop-in replacement - and the lack of an IEEE 1149.1 Standard Test Access Port (JTAG) puts bare-metal development on a back footing.

As an accessory to existing boards, the Pi holds promise - but as a replacement it is found lacking.

Increasing competition

The Pi has the potential to boost the UK technology industry in other ways. It has already demonstrated that there is demand for low-cost and easily-accessible equivalents to the expensive development boards of today. Much of the demand so far has come from end-users eager to use the device as a media-streaming system.

The success of the Pi has triggered several clone projects. Bulgarian open-source electronics house Olimex has already begun small-scale production of a rival device dubbed the OLINUXINO. This features the iMX233 ARM-based microprocessor and there are plans to produce more powerful devices in the near future. Manufacturers of existing development boards are also looking to re-tool with cheaper designs in the hopes of latching on to the surprising market revealed by the Pi's popularity.

The 'OLINUXINO' is shaping up to be a potential competitor

For UK manufacturers, it's a chance to be at the forefront of what is looking increasingly like a revolution, albeit one which has a few roadblocks along the way. The Foundation's original plan to have the Raspberry Pi manufactured in the UK was stymied by two key failings - complex tax restrictions on component imports, and a feeling that UK electronics manufacturers are simply not doing all they can to win new business.

The government, at the Foundation's request, is currently investigating the tax issue which saw the manufacturing of the Pi lost to Chinese fabrication facilities. The issues in question are long and complex, they boil down to this. Current import laws make it expensive to import components for assembly in the UK. It is cheaper to have the same components assembled into a finished product abroad before importing them to the UK for sale.

That's an issue which puts UK manufacturing at a serious disadvantage, but one which only the government can address - unlike the second problem. The apparently lackadaisical attitude shown by UK high-tech manufacturing to the relatively small-scale projects, which the Pi first appeared to be. Cost is also an issue, with the Foundation reporting a labour cost delta of 5 to 10 per panel between the UK and China, and service is rather more pressing.

"Chinese companies just work harder for your business," Upton explained in an interview earlier this year. "A Chinese company will work through the weekend phoning up different component suppliers, they'll reduce your cost by getting cheaper parts, and then they'll give you a much shorter schedule at a much lower cost.

"There is a cost element to this, but also a service element; I mean, these Chinese companies are really keen for your business, and that was disappointing to me because there's no reason a British company can't be like that," Upton explained.

Upton with an early batch of units shipped from China

With a clear market for low-cost devices similar to the Pi, and an indication of how the UK needs to change in order to win back manufacturing orders from the Far East, the opportunities are there.

Another market with potential is with accessories. The first Raspberry Pi Accessory Kits,' providing SD cards pre-loaded with software, 3D printed cases and power supplies, have started to appear in the channel, along with add-on devices like Gert van Loo's Gertboard and the Slice of Pi break-out board from UK-based Ciseco.

With the Pi expected to sell many tens of thousands of units world-wide, there's a real market for complementary products - and that's a market which the UK technology industry should be thinking about exploiting.

Nurturing future talent

Looking away from the short term and further into the future, the Pi starts to have a real impact. The launch of the device saw such unprecedented demand that distribution and manufacturing partners Farnell and RS Components had their global websites downed under the traffic, and the devices are still proving hard to come by despite strong production schedules.

Although many of the Pi's current buyers are hackers and tinkerers, the Foundation's stated goal is to produce a device which can be used to further the improvement of computing education in the UK and abroad.

By providing a low-cost device with a sound software platform for programming and development, the Foundation hopes to move schoolchildren away from learning to use Microsoft Office and toward true computing. This Upton explains, is what will have the biggest impact on businesses in the UK and further afield.

Those who grew up during the microcomputer boom of the 80s are the technical staff of today, but that boom has long since passed. Graduates with true computing knowledge are thin on the ground, and that translates into a serious dearth of qualified candidates for developmental, research and other roles in the IT industry.

By providing schools with an educational tool, less than the cost of most textbooks - and pupils with a cheap way to equip themselves with the same technology, Upton and his colleagues at the Foundation are hoping to bring back the days of true home computing'.

The Raspberry Pi can capture the imagination of students

Introducing more children to the joys of programming at a young age, Upton argues, means that computing degrees will find themselves with a larger intake.

This could trigger a much need chain reaction; a larger intake of students for computing and related degrees means a larger quantity of knowledgeable, capable and skilled graduates in the employment pool.

With many companies often struggling to find talent to fill technical posts, especially in the fields of programming and electronics, that's little short of a promise to give the UK technology industry the shot in the arm it needs to put itself back on top.

It's not just IT-related industry which stands to benefit from a shift to teaching true computing in schools as a replacement for the administrative skills-heavy ICT curriculum of today. The Foundation argues that programmatic thinking,' which can be trained at a young age through the use of educational programming languages like Logo and Scratch, is a skill which would benefit any role in a business.

The Pi promises much, but only time will tell whether it can satisfy the IT industry's hunger for highly skilled workers.

ARM has debuted the ultra-efficient and low-cost Cortex-M0+ processor as the manufacturer aims to kick-start the creation and adoption of connected devices.

The Cortex-M0+ is a 32-bit processor that will enable the creation of always-on "smarter" devices, control systems and intelligent sensors that share information via the internet, the firm said.

The chip builds on technology that was introduced in the Cortex-M0, with ARM adding functionality to increase performance and maximise power efficiency.

ARM expects the processor to be used in a variety of devices ranging from medical equipment to office lighting and household appliances such as fridges. The chip builds on technology that was introduced in the Cortex-M0, with ARM adding functionality to increase performance and maximise power efficiency.

ARM is keen to emphasise that the M0+ processor has the ability to deliver higher performance than commonly used 8-bit and 16-bit chips, whilst consuming 30 per cent less power.

Mike Inglis, executive vice president and general manager of Processor Division at ARM emphasised the firm's commitment to increasing the number of connected devices in use.

"[We] have worked closely with our partners on the definition of the new processor to ensure that it can enable the low-cost devices of today, while also unlocking the potential benefits delivered by the Internet of Things," he said.

The Cortex-M0+ processor has so far been licensed by two firms. The first is Freescale, a US-based manufacturer, which provides embedded hardware for the industrial, networking, automotive and consumer markets. Dutch-based firm, NXP Semiconductor, which serves multiple markets including industrial, lighting, mobile sectors has also signed on to use the chip.

The announcement of the Cortex-M0+ looks to be a significant step in the creation of a connected world. The preceeding M0 chip had 50 licensees and many of these are expected use the latest version of the processor.

Mobile industry body the GSMA has predicted that the total number of connected devices will explode, rising from nine billion in 2011 to more than 24 billion in the next decade.

ARM is also hoping that the Cortex-M0+ chipset will continue to provide a lucrative revenue stream as it faces increased competition from Intel in the smartphone and tablet market.

2011 has been a year of contrasts between those companies, products and technologies that have soared high despite all the economic doom and gloom of the wider world and those that haven't fared nearly so well.

We take a look back at the winners and losers of the past year in no particular order, but the technology world is a fickle one, so this year's winners may well end up being next year's losers.

The Winners

Siri

The inclusion of Siri as a tech winner in this list may seem controversial as Apple's voice activated personal assistant is less than perfect and is currently available on just one rather expensive product, the iPhone 4S.

However, Siri is the first voice recognition product we actually use on a regular basis while it's context-sensitive answers and integration with online databases and apps is not only technologically impressive but could point the way for other voice recognition systems.

Plus, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Despite initially downplaying the usefulness of Siri, Google is now rumored to be working on its voice activated personal assistant code-named Majel.

Social networking

Social networks have been all the rage long before 2011 stumbled into being, but this year highlighted the importance of social networking to businesses. A business that doesn't have a presence on Twitter to respond to customer complaints is behind the times, while the potential of advertising on Facebook to increase your company's visibility in the marketplace is immense.

There's also another side to social networking and that's their potential for embarrassment and legal liability via data leakage and employee misuse. This has given rise to a host of security software, services and appliances dedicated to controlling access to social networks with varying degrees of success. Social networks must be important if there are now products dedicated to blocking them.

Windows Phone 7

Although Windows Phone 7 was officially launched in late 2010, it was only in 2011 that Microsoft's replacement for the awful Windows Mobile 6 finally became a viable alternative to iOS and Android. Updates throughout the year, especially the 'Mango' 7.5 update, added much needed features and refined others.

Although the fledgling operating system is still immature and needs refining, it's now good enough that we know of several employees at companies with BYOD policies adopting Windows Phone handsets in place of Android phones. If this trend continues, Windows Phone 7 will supplant Blackberry as the third mobile operating system of choice besides iOS and Android.

Consumer technology companies

One of the biggest changes to affect IT departments this year is the growing trend towards consumerisation, or more specifically Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, where employees can choose their own computing clients rather than being given one by IT.

Although BYOD won't be suitable for all companies depending on what they do, where it is allowed employees have tended to shun traditional IT vendors such as RIM, Dell, HP and Fujitsu in favour of consumer tech providers like Apple, Samsung and HTC who have reaped the benefits as a result.

The cloud

The cloud finally came into its own in 2011. Consumer cloud storage services like Dropbox have gained widespread acceptance, while new cloud services and cloud-based versions of widely used existing products like Microsoft Office 365 have prompted many businesses and even entire governments to either move to the cloud or at least seriously consider doing so.

2011 hasn't been without its problems for the cloud, from controversies surrounding Dropbox's privacy policies and procedures to the outage affecting Amazon EC2, but these problems only serve to highlight the growing importance of cloud computing in our personal and professional lives.

The ARM processor architecture

The market for processors used to be dominated by just two companies Intel and AMD. There's now a third company though ARM. Almost every smartphone and tablet currently available uses a processor based on ARM designs - Intel and AMD have virtually no presence in these two growth markets. ARM processors are even making their way into servers.

Just as remarkable as ARM's dominance of the two major markets with its power-frugal chip designs is its business model. The British company licenses its processor designs to other companies, rather than dealing with the complexities and problems of being a manufacturer itself. Even AMD has emulated this business model by spinning off its manufacturing business into a separate company, GlobalFoundries, back in 2009.

Intel will doubtless remain dominant in the market for server, desktop and laptop processors, but with more and more computing taking place on ARM-powered mobile devices, but the company will have to move fast if it wants a piece of ARM's mobile action.

The Losers

WebOS

If 2011 marked the ascendance of Windows Phone 7, then it also marked the downfall of webOS. We have a great deal of fondness for the many thoughtful design touches in webOS, but clearly owners HP didn't.

Within a month of the launch of the webOS TouchPad tablet, then-CEO Leo Apotheker canned the mobile operating system despite the imminent launch of new webOS Pre smartphones. A firesale of remaining TouchPads ensued and the very future of the much mooted webOS printers and the operating system itself was thrown into doubt by HP's drawn out pondering over its future.

Diehard webOS fans may take solace in the HP's decision to open source the operating system (despite the ongoing ambiguities over which open source license will apply to webOS), but this merely looks like a long, drawn out slide into irrelevance to us. To survive in a fiercely competitive market, mobile operating systems need companies with significant resources to design matching hardware, foster vibrant third party support and a strong design, technical and marketing vision to back it up.

If HP wasn't willing or able to this when it owned the source code, what has changed now that webOS will be open source? Is new CEO Meg Whitman expecting some other company to step up and take its place? Bye bye webOS and thanks for the memories.

Netbooks

Netbooks were all the rage a mere year or two ago, but their sales have stagnated and Intel's Oak Trail refresh of its Atom netbook processors earlier this year went largely unheralded. Meanwhile tablets and smartphones have taken the place of netbooks as the highly mobile but affordable computing device of choice for many, while Intel's new Ultrabook brand for more powerful ultraportable laptops threatens to undermine the long term support and demand for netbooks even more.

While netbooks still have their place for some customers, especially in price-sensitive emerging markets, the final nail in their coffin may well be Dell's decision to stop selling netbooks altogether.

Itanium

The Itanium processors may not be household names like Intel's other chip brands, but they're just as important powering business critical servers all over the world with a high degree of reliability.

Why would you make that inference that because I announce support for X86 that I'm less committed to Itanium? I'm very committed to Itanium!

Unfortunately, the future of Itanium is now severely in doubt following a highly public withdrawal of support from Oracle and moves by the now sole Itaniui client HP that suggest it too is deemphasizing support for the niche chip, despite strenuous denials by HP executives to the contrary.

Despite revelations of a secret Itanium development contract between HP and Intel, we doubt Intel is diverting its best engineering minds and devoting serious resources to a niche server chip that isn't compatible with its other processors. Especially when the company is losing out to ARM in the far bigger mobile processor market.

Tablets other than the iPad

The Apple iPad 2 has been the dominant tablet computer of 2011. Although there are now a multitude of computers, market data suggests the vast majority of customers are buying iPads. Besides the aforementioned HP TouchPad which was abruptly pulled from the market by its manufacturer, RIM has also failed quite spectacularly with its lackluster BlackBerry Playbook.

The only serious competition to the iPad 2 lies in the form of Android Honeycomb-based tablets, but even these are immature when it comes to hardware and interface design and app support.

This could all change in 2012 though when Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and the next generation of Android tablets emerge, plus there's the potential rise of Windows 8 tablets.

COMMENT AMD has launched its latest range of server processors, the Opteron 6200 and 4200 series chips, otherwise known as Interlagos and Valencia, including a stonking 16-core model.

Naturally, AMD claims its new chips are faster and run cooler than Intel's Xeon processors, but the silicon underdog also claims the new Opterons are perfect for the cloud too - 'Core of the cloud' as AMD's marketing slogan wittily puts it. However, to us it sounds like AMD is jumping on the cloud bandwagon for marketing purposes and the bandwagon is creaking.

AMD's position is fairly straightforward. The new Opterons pack greater processor density into the same amount of rack space as their predecessors without a corresponding increase in power and cooling requirements. Naturally, this sounds perfect for datacentres providing cloud services. Increasing processing power without having to invest in more racks and coolers means you can provide cloud services to more users/customers and potentially pass on the cost savings to those customers.

However, it's worth bearing in mind AMD's somewhat precarious commercial position. Arch-rival Intel has whittled away AMD's market share of the lucrative server processor market just as many of the servers we review on IT Pro have Intel Xeons as AMD Opterons, if not more. The cloud, for better or worse, is the buzzword of the moment and piggybacking on the hype surrounding the cloud is a surefire way to attract attention and market awareness. Both of which are what AMD needs if it's to sell more processors.

That's not to say AMD's claims are necessarily baseless. Cloud providers would of course benefit from increased processing density. AMD's numerous improvements in the new Opterons, from the TurboCore condition-based temporary clock speed boosting technology to the TDP Power Cap method of conserving power without apparently decreasing clock speeds, would benefit cloud providers.

But they would also benefit just about every datacentre, whether or not they're providing cloud services we'd be surprised if there were any datacentre managers who wouldn't want increased processing density and energy efficiency. Especially in an era of tightened budgets and higher energy costs.

What would allay our scepticism is some reassurance that Interlagos and Valencia are but the first steps in a long-term plan. AMD was keen to trot out spokespersons from software and OS partners like Red Hat and VMWare at its Munich launch event for Interlagos to show third-party support for the new Opterons. Third-party support can be fickle though, especially if the future is in doubt.

While we wouldn't expect AMD to divulge its entire product road map, some hints as to what role Fusion-style APUs could play in servers would be welcome. Intel may not necessarily be any better at executing ambitious long-term plans when it comes to massively multi-core and APU-style processors (Larrabee anyone?), but AMD may have to worry about ARM which may be on the rise as a serious competitor in the server market.

In short, we don't think pitching its processors as perfect for the cloud is the market share magic bullet AMD is hoping for. We'd love to be proven wrong though if only because competition is good for your business and the technology it uses.

British success story ARM has announced a fresh GPU designed to bring a significant graphics boost to mobile devices.

ARM has managed to maintain a solid grip on the mobile processor space and the Mali-T658 GPU is another addition to its popular lineup of chip designs.

The company claimed its new processor could provide up to ten times the graphics performance of its predecessor - the Mali-400 MP GPU, which is currently found in the Samsung Galaxy SII.

Based on the Midgard architecture, the Mali-T658 GPU is capable of linking up to eight cores. ARM has also doubled the number of arithmetic pipelines in each of the cores compared to the Mali-T604 GPU.

"Following the recent introduction of big.LITTLE processing and the ARMv8 architecture, the launch of Mali-T658 is another example of how ARM is seeking to redefine heterogeneous computing for the embedded space," said Jon Peddie, President of specialist graphics research consultancy, Jon Peddie Research.

"This will provide high-performance graphics and compute systems for low-power applications."

The new GPU has been designed to work alongside the ARM Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processors announced recently, either in standalone ways or via the big.LITTLE processing architecture, designed to save on power.

The concept behind big.LITTLE is to have the Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 processors work as a system-on-a-chip. The LITTLE', lower-power Cortex-A7 runs the operating system and applications for basic always-on, always-connected tasks, such as social media and audio playback. The Cortex-A15 is used for high-performance tasks, like navigation and gaming, as required.

The new, super-powered processor could help back this architecture for some seriously powerful and energy-efficient mobile devices.

"Next generation consumer devices based on the Mali-T658 GPU will address the growing user expectation for slick user interfaces and desktop-class graphics," said Pete Hutton, general manager, Media Processing Division, ARM.

"Intuitive user interfaces will mean that consumers can access the full functionality of their connected devices, for richer user experiences. This includes HD gaming and new compute-intensive applications, such as augmented reality."

HP announced plans to stuff ARM-designed chips into its servers, as it looks to create super energy-efficient datacentres for cloud providers and large enterprises.

It marks a significant moment for ARM, which has done little to challenge the dominance of the x86 architecture used in the majority of servers today.

It also forms part of Project Moonshot a multi-year HP initiative designed to support those moving to "hyperscale environments."

HP Redstone is designed for testing and proof of concept. It incorporates more than 2,800 servers in a single rack.

HP is essentially looking to help companies truly consolidate their data centres, thereby making them more eco-friendly and efficient.

The company introduced the HP Redstone Server Development Platform, which will feature Calxeda's EnergyCore ARM Cortex processors. The system-on-a-chip processors should help companies basing deployments on the Redstone platform use 94 per cent less space in their data centres, HP said.

ARM launched its energy-efficient Cortex-A7 MPCore chip design last month with much fanfare around their power consumption capabilities. The British chip developer claimed its new processor design was five times more energy efficient than its predecessor, while also delivering significantly greater performance.

ARM won't be the only Redstone partner, however. HP confirmed future Redstone server deployments would come packed with chips from Intel and "others."

"HP Redstone is designed for testing and proof of concept. It incorporates more than 2,800 servers in a single rack, reducing cabling, switching and the need for peripheral devices, and delivering a 97 per cent reduction in complexity," HP said.

Select customers will be able to get their hands on Redstone offerings from the first half of next year.

To supplement the Redstone platform, the US tech giant launched the HP Discovery Lab. This services offering will let customers test out Redstone deployments before making any purchase. The first lab will open in Houston in January, with European facilities expected soon.

"The volume of data processed in financial markets has increased exponentially, and traditional scale-up or scale-out architectures are struggling to keep up with demand without vastly increasing cost and power usage," said Niall Dalton, director of high-frequency trading at Cantor Fitzgerald, a company looking into the Redstone technology.

"HP is taking a holistic approach to solving this problem and working to bring unprecedented energy and cost savings for tomorrow's large-scale, data-intensive applications."

ARM yesterday introduced its most energy-efficient application class processor along with a new flexible approach to processing.

Its new Cortex-A7 MPCore chip design updates the existing Cortex-A8 used in many popular smartphones and is one-fifth the size.

The chip developer is claiming its new processor design is also five times more energy efficient than its predecessor, while also delivering significantly greater performance.

Consumers are demanding performance as well as the always on, always-connected service they expect.

This combination of low power and high performance demonstrates ARM's targeting of sub-$100 (63.36) entry-level smartphones to help it target emerging markets where penetration levels are still relatively low.

"As smartphones and tablets continue to evolve into users' primary compute device, consumers are demanding performance as well as the always on, always-connected service they expect," stated Mike Inglis, ARM processor division executive vice president.

The introduction of ARM's big.LITTLE processing architecture with the new Cortex-A7 would also help meet this demand and consolidate its market position, he added.

The new architecture specifically tackles the challenge of creating a System on Chip' (SoC) that still delivers high performance and extended battery life. It combines two different, compatible processors within the SoC and enables power management software to switch between them.

The idea is that the two processors, in the shape of the new 28-nanometre Cortex-A7 and ARM's 20-nanometre multicore Cortex-A15 (first launched a year ago), reside on the same SoC.

The LITTLE', lower-power Cortex-A7 runs the operating system (OS) and applications for basic always-on, always-connected tasks, such as social media and audio playback. The Cortex-A15 is used for high-performance tasks, like navigation and gaming, as required.

ARM also stressed that this dynamic selection is also transparent to the application software or middleware running on the processors, supported by advanced ARM system IP, such as AMBA 4 ACE Coherency Extensions to ensure full cache, I/O and processor-to-processor coherency between the two chips, and across the complete system.

It said the user would not notice the time taken to migrate between the two processors because it is in the order of 20 microseconds, but that it would optimise processing power and save energy using its newest chip for common workloads.

"The Cortex-A7 processor's ability to work together with the Cortex-A15 processor in a big.LITTLE configuration will help address the high-performance and low-power requirements of OEMs [original equipment manufacturers to deliver the optimum user experience for next generation mobile phones and mobile computing devices," said Bo-ik Sohn, vice president of ARM partner, LG Electronics.

The Cortex-A7 processor is expected to feature in entry-level smartphones sometime in 2013.

There are few great British tech success stories. ARM, however, is undoubtedly one of them, so much so you'd be forgiven for thinking it came from auspicious beginnings. But you'd be wrong.

"Acorn was a company that kept failing. We were used to having great products that went nowhere," said current president Tudor Brown. It hardly sounds like the launchpad for a company that turned over 410 million in 2010, but for Brown, and 11 others, that was the situation which led to the creation of ARM in 1990.

The 2000-strong Cambridge firm is now one of Britain's biggest tech success stories, but you're unlikely to have heard of ARM unless you pay attention to smartphone specifications. It's made millions from its unique business model: designing mobile processors, licensing them to manufacturers and watching them take over the world.

From small acorns

ARM traces its origins to the days of the wildly successful, Wozniak-designed Apple II. At the same time Acorn Computers had the BBC Micro. Yet both Apple and Acorn realised they needed to develop successors.

It's very easy in hindsight to think of it as a glorious new start-up.

Apple used a Motorola chip inside its next PC, the Lisa, but Acorn decided there were no adequate processors on the market. With that in mind, and with a fair share of confidence, Acorn started a project to build its own in 1983. It would become the Acorn Risc Machine, or ARM.

By 1985, the team - which also included fellow founder John Biggs - had working silicon: a chip consisting of 25,000 transistors running at 6MHz. Despite this early success, the development proved too expensive for Acorn: "Acorn desperately wanted rid of us and we felt desperately unloved," said Biggs.

Ironically, the firm's main competition, Apple, saved the day. "Apple came to Acorn and wanted to build a product on our technology," Brown said. The idea of a joint venture was spawned. Brown, Biggs and a dozen eager engineers - financed partially by Apple, and with help from circuit board manufacturer VLSI Technologies - got to work.

ARM Holdings was formed on 27 November 1990 with the goal of "taking the technology and making it commercially successful," according to Brown. But the firm's early excitement was pervaded by a sense of trepidation. "We were free from Acorn, our own masters, and we respected each other - it was very much a case of let's give it our best shot,'" says Brown. "It's very easy in hindsight to think of it as a glorious new start-up," Biggs added.

That "best shot" helped ARM create its first successful silicon - the chip that powered the Apple Newton. "It was the world's first PDA and it's the forerunner of what's become the iPhone today," Brown said.

The Newton was something of a commercial flop. Brown says its relative failure meant ARM had "very little presence within Apple" after its launch. Nonetheless, it helped the embryonic chip designer get a foot in the door.

Fast-forward to 1994, and the firm introduced a product both Brown and Biggs agree was one of ARM's most important: ARM7TDMI. It was "the genesis of all mobile phones," according to Brown, and has been a phenomenal success. Motorola, Nokia and Texas Instruments were three early customers but even today the product still accounts for a third of the company's shipments.

Despite the fact the company was still working out of a building affectionately dubbed "The Barn" (see below for picture from ARM), the launch of ARM7TDMI coincided with a burst of stratospheric growth.

It was when ARM's current executive vice president of marketing, Lance Howarth, joined. "I'm employee number 47, but by the end of that year we'd got 87. We had desks in corridors, and our whole lives revolved around the company."

ARM's unique working environment gave rise to a proud working culture.

"You got incredible team spirit, and you're very dependent on social networks across the organisation," said Howarth.

"We're no longer single blokes, we've all grown up and have families, but towards the conclusion of a project the guys still put in the hours at weekends and in the evening. It's not pressure, but it comes from the sense of not letting your peers down. People drive themselves because they feel a collective responsibility."

Brown tries to maintain the "fundamentals" of the organisation that he still treats as a "small entrepreneurial startup," but he's keen to stress that ARM keeps its feet on the ground. "We're not a flamboyant company and we look after our cash," he added. "We don't have swanky offices, and we still fly in economy."

We're no longer single blokes, we've all grown up and have families, but towards the conclusion of a project the guys still put in the hours.

The underdog spirit still allows for the occasional celebration. When the first Acorn-financed ARM silicon was up and running on 26 April 1985, at 3pm, the team afforded themselves a bottle of champagne labelled with the time and date. It's a tradition that continues today. "The whole company has champagne when we get working silicon," enthused Howarth. "There's about 50 or 60 bottles in our atrium."

The follow up to the ARM7TDMI, the ARM8, wasn't such a monumental success, however. "It's the curse of the even number," laughed Howarth, before explaining the chip was superseded by a processor called StrongARM, developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which reached the market before ARM's equivalent and was then snapped up by Intel.

Despite the occasional stumble, ARM has released more hits than misses. "We've brought out various innovations every two or three years," said Brown, who reckons the Cambridge-based firm has a tougher time of it than, say, Intel, which merely has to concentrate on producing higher-performance processors. "We actually have three completely different processor roadmaps at any one time," explains Brown. "We drive higher performance, but we've also pushed down into much lower cost."

ARM continued to find success into the late 90s. Its chips powered 1997's Nokia 6110, the world's first GSM-capable mobile, and in 1998 ARM was floated on the London Stock Exchange. A host of acquisitions after the turn of the millennium grew the business, and it's now got offices in locations as diverse as California, Norway, Taiwan, India and Slovenia.

It's the sort of expansion that young engineers like Howarth never even imagined: "[ARM's first CEO] Robin Saxby said one day there'll be an ARM-powered device for every person on the planet. He understood the potential and scale of the business."

Incredulous employees may have scoffed at Saxby's predictions but, to date, over 25 billion ARM-based chips have been shipped.

Howarth has his eye firmly on ARM's traditional market. "If you look forward, by 2020, there's only going to be two [processor manufacturers] - ourselves and Intel."

That bold prediction is born of the differing ways in which both firms operate. Intel has the money to invest, he said, and ARM benefits from its heritage in low-power processing technology.

"We have all the infrastructure, and our characteristics - very high performance, low power, cost effective - deliver benefits in any market we look at," Howarth said.

Microsoft's renewed focus on tablets for Windows 8 is one of those markets and Howarth sees it as a massive opportunity. "That's a huge shift in the industry and having Windows 8 allows us to get into the laptop and netbook space and really start competing with Intel," he said.

ARM has aspirations outside of its traditional markets, too. "We see our architectures in set-top boxes, intelligent lightning, kettles," Howarth said. But ARM's low-power chips - which Biggs describes as a "happy accident" - can also work in data centres.

"If you look at data centres, one of the biggest costs is power and energy. We think there's a huge saving to be made in terms of power consumption and performance-per-Watt," Howarth said. It's a long-term aim, with the company hoping ARM architectures will be deployed in data centres by 2015. It's clear the firm wants to muscle in on this "Intel-dominated" area.

Brown also sees little reason to leave ARM's winning formula behind but, as well as "continuing to do broadly what we do today," he believes there are plenty of opportunities elsewhere. "There's going to be a huge groundswell in the internet of things' - the sort of devices that have to become connected and smarter."

If you look at data centres, one of the biggest costs is power and energy. We think there's a huge saving to be made.

He's not talking about smartphones - instead, Brown predicts ARM will find its chips in things as diverse as fridges and heart monitors, all of which will "communicate and share data."

He concedes a future made of ARM-powered body parts might "horrify" some people, but he truly believes in that future. "I believe ARM will be the engine that will power that, and no-one will ever know."

It's a perfect way to sum up ARM's quiet, phenomenal success: from a company spun off a bankrupt business to one that powers some of the world's most exciting technology from a campus in Cambridge. "It's hard to think of us as being a crazy start up," says Brown, and he's right.

This is one British firm that deserves to be celebrated.