ARM and the Law of Accelerating Returns!

ARM and the Law of Accelerating Returns!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-30-2015 at 4:00 pm

ARM is one of the companies I have had professional experience with during my storied semiconductor career so I know some of their history first hand. I worked for a physical IP company that was purchased by ARM and at Virage Logic we competed against ARM head-to-head. ARM is also featured in our book “Fabless: The Transformation … Read More


ARM ♥ Xilinx!

ARM ♥ Xilinx!
by Daniel Nenni on 09-28-2014 at 7:00 am

The good news is that as a part of SemiWiki we get free media passes to all of the cool conferences. The bad news is that our inboxes get flooded with announcements. ARM TechCon is next week and my delete button is on overtime but it is interesting to see who is active in conferences and who is not. In this case Xilinx is very active and Altera… Read More


ARM’s Quarterly Results: Licensing Strong, Royalties Weak, Future is Bright

ARM’s Quarterly Results: Licensing Strong, Royalties Weak, Future is Bright
by Paul McLellan on 07-28-2014 at 8:30 pm

Last week was ARM’s quarterly earnings call. Simon Segars, the CEO, and Tim Score, the CFO, presented from London.


First, the numbers:

  • revenue was up 17% year-on-year in dollar terms to $309.6M, but only 9% in Sterling terms due to exchange rate moves to £187.1
  • profit before tax was $94.2M

  • licensing was up 42% year-on-year
Read More

Celebrating 50 Billion ARM Powered Chips!

Celebrating 50 Billion ARM Powered Chips!
by Daniel Nenni on 02-27-2014 at 12:00 pm

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In case you have not seen it yet there is a website named 50BillionChips where you can follow the journey of ARM. This goes quite well with the brief history of ARM we wrote last year in preparation for our bookFabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry. ARM was a big part of that transformation of course.… Read More


Intel is NOT Transparent Again!

Intel is NOT Transparent Again!
by Daniel Nenni on 01-19-2014 at 9:00 am

Recent headlines suggest that Intel was not transparent about some of the products they showed at the CES keynote. Intel confirmed on Friday that they used ARM-based chips for some of the products but would not say which ones. When your company’s tag line is “Intel Inside” and you hold up a product during your keynote wouldn’t… Read More


EDA and Semi IP Stocks in 2013: MENT, ARMH, CDN, SNPS, ANSS, CEVA, IMG.L

EDA and Semi IP Stocks in 2013: MENT, ARMH, CDN, SNPS, ANSS, CEVA, IMG.L
by Daniel Payne on 12-20-2013 at 12:39 am

2013 was an up year for the stock markets as both the DJIA and the tech-heavy NASDAQ showed significant growth, so how did EDA and Semi IP companies do in the past 12 months? A quick stock plot from Yahoo Finance shows us that only two of the seven companies beat the NASDAQ: ARMH, MENT.… Read More


A Brief History of ARM Holdings

A Brief History of ARM Holdings
by Daniel Nenni on 12-07-2013 at 12:00 pm

It was on 26th April 1985 (at 3pm to be precise) that the very first ARM silicon sprang in to life – it was a 25K transistor design implemented in 3um technology with just 2 layers of metal.

However back then the “A” in ARM stood for Acorn – ARM the company had yet to be formed. Acorn sold computers to schools and so cost… Read More


Social Media at ARM

Social Media at ARM
by Daniel Payne on 11-26-2013 at 3:27 pm

The number one semiconductor IP company in the world is ARM, and they have really figured out how to use social media in a big way to communicate with and listen to their customers. When you first visit the Home page for ARM there are four social media icons displayed in monochrome underneath the menu bar. As you hover over the icons (Twitter,… Read More


Meeting the Challenges of Designing Internet of Things SoCs with the Right Design Flow and IP

Meeting the Challenges of Designing Internet of Things SoCs with the Right Design Flow and IP
by Daniel Nenni on 11-18-2013 at 7:00 pm

Connecting “things” to the Internet and enabling sensing and remote control, data gathering, transmission, and analysis improves many areas: safety and quality of life, healthcare, manufacturing and service delivery, energy efficiency, and the environment. The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is quickly becoming… Read More


Can Intel Compete in the IoT?

Can Intel Compete in the IoT?
by Daniel Nenni on 11-05-2013 at 5:00 pm

Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer, is credited for the term “The Internet of Things” to describe an ecosystem where the Internet is connected to the physical world via ubiquitous sensors. Simply stated: rather than humans creating content for the internet IoT devices create the content. To be clear, this… Read More