In 1978, two talented individuals, Chris Curry and Hermann Hauser, co-founded Acorn Computers, a startup with extremely humble beginnings in Cambridge, and were awarded a contract to build the BBC Micro, which was part of a U.K. government initiative where it was envisioned that every classroom needed to have a computer present. Acorn Computers might have believed that this was a victory for them, but it turned out that this small event would change the technological landscape forever. Acorn Computers eventually decided to build an in-house processor, which was unheard of for such a small company.
The ARM1 was the beginning of a revolution, but it started out small, featuring just 25,000 transistors
In 1980, two engineers, Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber, were given the responsibility of designing a 32-bit processor. Despite their progress being hampered due to limited resources, the ARM1 was born in 1985, using just 25,000 transistors on the 3μm process. The chip’s strengths were that it consumed less power and delivered incredible performance. That was just the start of the British chip design firm, and today, ARM is celebrating its 40th anniversary, which includes a major milestone that will forever be etched in history; shipping the 250 billionth chip in four decades.
“April 2025 marks the 40th anniversary of the Arm architecture. What began as an ambitious project in a small corner of Cambridge, U.K., has grown into the world’s most widely adopted computing architecture, now powering billions of devices – from sensors, smartphones and laptops to vehicles, datacenters and beyond.
The Arm architecture story began over four decades ago, driven by a small team with a big vision: to make high-performance, power-efficient computing accessible to all. Born out of simplicity, elegance and parsimony, the architecture laid the groundwork for a new era of efficient, scalable technology.”
For those wondering if ARM’s low-power CPU designs were thanks to robust foresight, well, it was the complete opposite. At the time, Acorn Computers did not have the funds to leverage expensive ceramic chip packaging, so it had to resort to a cheaper plastic package, meaning that the processor had to flaunt impeccable power efficiency. There were also no tools to gauge how much power the chip was consuming, so it was over-engineered to purposely consume less juice and be safe.
Fast-forward to today, ARM’s designs are still used in modern-day chipsets, with the most notable one being MediaTek’s upcoming Dimensity 9500. The British chip design firm says in its latest blog post that ‘the journey is far from over,’ as it has set its sights on the data center market, but also AI, edge computing, and sustainability.
News Source: ARM
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