Intel Lost $1B in Mobile Last Quarter

Intel Lost $1B in Mobile Last Quarter
by Paul McLellan on 04-16-2014 at 8:00 am

Intel announced their quarterly results today. Revenue was $12.8B, up 1% from a year ago with operating income of $2.5B also up 1% from last year.

Since the future of the world is mobile and not desktop/laptop, the mobile results are the most interesting. Mobile sales fell 61% to $156M. This includes mobile products and anything … Read More


Intelligent Sensors

Intelligent Sensors
by Paul McLellan on 03-10-2014 at 3:48 pm

Wearables are clearly one of the hot areas of the Internet of Things (IoT). A big part of that market is sensors of one sort or another. Andes low power microprocessors are a good fit for this market which requires both 32 bit performance and ultra low power. Performance is needed since IoT by definition has internet access in some way… Read More


ARM Announces A17

ARM Announces A17
by Paul McLellan on 02-11-2014 at 12:36 pm

It is microprocessors all the time right now, with Linley last week. Today ARM announced the next generation Cortex-A17 core. It is a development built on the Cortex-A12 core, itself built on A7 (which is the current volume leader). ARM says that it is 60% faster than the A7 core, although I’m sure a lot of that gain is a process… Read More


A Brief History of Andes Technology

A Brief History of Andes Technology
by Paul McLellan on 01-06-2014 at 4:47 pm

I like to call Andes Technology the biggest microprocessor IP company you’ve never heard of. I wrote about themback in October when I sat down with them during the Linley Microprocessor Conference. Part of the reason you have never heard of them is that they are based in Taiwan and most of their business is in Taiwan and China.… Read More


The Pelican Has Landed: Formal on an Unannounced ARM Processor

The Pelican Has Landed: Formal on an Unannounced ARM Processor
by Paul McLellan on 11-10-2013 at 3:00 pm

At the Jasper Users’ Group, Alex Netterville of ARM presented about how ARM are using formal on an unannounced processor code-named Pelican. Don’t read the presentation trying to find out information about Pelican itself, there isn’t any. That wasn’t the topic. Alex has been using formal approaches… Read More


Using Formal to Find Bugs in ARM Microprocessors

Using Formal to Find Bugs in ARM Microprocessors
by Paul McLellan on 11-01-2013 at 12:35 am

2.5x ROI vs simulation. 25% of bugs found for only 10% of the overall verification cost. 36% of bugs in a current CPU project. These impressive results for formal analysis are what ARM’s Laurent Arditi reported at JUG 2013 after painstaking recording of metrics over several production programs.


As you can see from the above graph,… Read More


ARM and the Internet of Things

ARM and the Internet of Things
by Paul McLellan on 10-31-2013 at 6:00 pm

I was at ARM TechCon earlier this week, and attended Simon Segars (the CEO of ARM for the last 4 months) keynote speech that opened the second day. A theme of his speech was that just as innovation continues to happen in so-called mature industries like automobiles, the same will happen in mobile. One particular area of focus for ARM… Read More


ARM Signs 48 New Licenses in Q3

ARM Signs 48 New Licenses in Q3
by Paul McLellan on 10-22-2013 at 3:15 pm

ARM announced their quarterly results early this morning. ARM’s results are a funny mixture of backward looking information such as royalties which are reported a quarter late since they have to wait for their licensees to work out how many they shipped, and some very forward looking such as new licenses, which bring some… Read More


Server Shift to ARM Becomes a Stampede

Server Shift to ARM Becomes a Stampede
by Paul McLellan on 10-19-2013 at 3:00 pm

I have been at the Linley Microprocessor Conference today. This is the one that is not about mobile: about servers, networking, base-stations. Probably the most important story about the whole industry is that the “shift to ARM becomes a stampede.”


In this market it seems to be driven by the 64-bit ARMv8 instruction… Read More


Andes: the Biggest Microprocessor IP Company You’ve Never Hear Of

Andes: the Biggest Microprocessor IP Company You’ve Never Hear Of
by Paul McLellan on 10-16-2013 at 3:06 pm

I wrote in April about Andes Technology, a microprocessor IP licensing company that even the person sitting next to me, a strategic marketing guy from Qualcomm had never heard of. So, OK, if you read that earlier article you had at least heard of them.

Part of the reason you haven’t heard of them is that they are in Taiwan (in Hsinchu)… Read More