ARM
High-Performance Cores With Low Power Consumption
The ARM architecture is currently distributed by the company ARM Limited (Advanced Risc Machines). ARM Limited does not offer its own semiconductor components. They simply licenses the ARM cores to different semiconductor manufacturers. The properties of ARM cores are spread wide.
Today there are cores for very simple tasks as well as for very power-hungry applications. What they all have in common is the 32 bit architecture, although there are already 64Bit versions available. ARM has as managed to develop cores with low power consumption and high performance. That is why ARM architecture, in whatever form it takes, has become an integral part of development and is used in many application areas.
Samples ContactsOverview of the Modern ARM Cores
Today, almost all smartphones and tablets use one or more licensed ARM processors as their main processor. The ARM core is a RISC architecture with many of registers. There are 15 “general-purpose” registers available. There are also different modes, where you can switch between different register sets. This eliminates the need to continuously save the register contents. The architecture is very well-suited for languages like C. Of course, there are also GNU compilers for ARM, which many semiconductor manufacturers offer integrated in their IDE completely free of charge. Operating systems for ARM cores are available in any design.
Typical modern ARM cores are:
- ARM Cortex M0 and M0+: This core is used today for extremely low cost MCUs. It is available from almost every manufacturer. Operating systems are usually not used yet.
- ARM Cortex M23: Low-Power Microcontroller with TrustZone Security. This core is the solution for cost-sensitive and power-constrained applications. It is also ideal for applications where software security is required.
- ARM Cortex M3/M4: If embedded products require more computing power, ARM Cortex M3/M4 cores are the answer in most cases. But low-power applications are also possible. Here the use of various operating systems slowly begins
- ARM Cortex M7: Cortex M7 is an extremely powerful ARM core. It is already used for applications where microprocessors use operating systems such as Linux and Android.
