ARM-ed for the next push -- with 64 bit and Windows

21st February 2012
ARM-ed for the  next push -- with 64 bit and Windows
Guru Ganesan( left) ARM's India Managing Director and Graham Budd, ARM COO in Bangalore ( IndiaTechOnline Photo)

Bangalore, February 21 2012: Semiconductor and software design leader ARM, plans to expand its global reach with offerings that straddle two significant technologies: 64 bit processing on one hand and the Windows operating environment on the other. The UK-headquartered company’s new ARMv8 architecture embraces its first 64-bit instruction set, which will allow it to compete in the server and high end computing arena for the first time, explained Graham Budd, ARM’s Chief Operating Officer during a special briefing last week for IndiaTechOnline.
While ARM partners like Nvidia Corp. have announced plans to target the server market with the new architecture under the hood, Hewlett Packard has named a new low power server class – Redstone -- that will be fuelled by ARM 64 bit offerings.
Interestingly ARM sees an opportunity for its 64 bit foray, not just in servers but in high end smart phones as well. One should expect the first smartphones and tablets fuelled by ARM’s v8 64-bit architecture in 2013, Budd suggested.

In another interesting new direction, ARM will soon be available to drive a Windows OS. The first Windows-based ARM test devices will be available when the new Windows 8 preview is held on February 29 and Steven Sinofsky, President, Windows and Windows Live Division, Microsoft, has promised that Windows on ARM PCs, will be shipped simultaneously with PCs running Windows 8 on the x86/64 platform.

Budd added that the Windows and 64 bit reach-outs will complement ARM’s late-2011 launch of the big.LITTLE technology – answering a key challenge: how to create single-chip systems that provide both high performance as well as extreme power efficiency. big.LITTLE combines the performance of the ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processor with the energy efficiency of the Cortex-A7 processor, and enables the same application to switch between them, ‘on demand’. Under ideal conditions, big.LITTLE can extend battery life by up to 70 percent, he said.

Guru Ganesan, Managing Director, ARM India Operation, said the India-based developers of ARM had contributed architecture validation for all current architectures including the v8. They were in involved in the full gamut of ARM’s physical design from 20 nanometres to 180 NM, Ganesan added.
Links to recent media stories on ARM developments in 64 bit and Windows: ARM's first 64-bit processors target servers, smartphones
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223894/ARM_s_first_64_bit_processors_target_servers_smartphones  HP to Make ARM Servers Available for Testing in Q2 http://www.pcworld.com/article/249988/hp_to_make_arm_servers_available_for_testing_in_q2.html  ARM Forecasts Smartphones, Tablets with 64-Bit Microprocessors.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20120202235924_ARM_Forecasts_Smartphones_Tablets_with_64_Bit_Microprocessors.html  Building Windows for the ARM processor architecture
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/09/building-windows-for-the-arm-processor-architecture.aspx  
Microsoft Details Windows-On-ARM Development Efforts http://www.crn.in/Software-013Feb012-Microsoft-Details-Windows-On-ARM-Development-Efforts.aspx