Category: ARM

Google Wallet should use ARM TrustZone for 100% security

Posted by Charbax – February 13, 2012

Google Wallet should rely on ARM TrustZone to make the pin code authentication system 100% secure. I filmed about ARM TrustZone a couple years ago. (I suggested this last May when Google Wallet was launched). The way ARM TrustZone works is to create a separate 100% trusted OS used just to enter the pin code on a hardware level separation, thus a little secure-mode light diode can light up when in it, the main purpose is to prevent software snoopers/fake logon screens etc. I expect something like this is enabled by the NXP PN65 security chip that Google has suggested using on the initial couple NFC-enabled phones on the market, but actually using ARM TrustZone is the best idea. I expect to see new ARM TrustZone enabled phones at Mobile World Congress in a couple weeks from now. Here’s a latest news item about ARM TrustZone for Mobile Wallets: ARM to add NFC mobile wallet support (NFCworld.com)

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ARM quarterly profits up 45% year/year

Posted by Charbax – January 31, 2012

ARM just published their Q4 2011 numbers:

Q4 2011 – Financial Summary
Q4 2011 Q4 2010 % Change
Revenue ($m) 217.0 179.6 21%
Revenue (£m) 137.8 113.9 21%
Operating margin 48.2% 41.1%
Profit before tax (£m) 69.0 47.6 45%
Earnings per share (pence) 3.71 2.90 28%

Warren East, Chief Executive Officer, said:

“In Q4 and throughout 2011 ARM has seen strong licensing growth, driven by market-leading semiconductor companies increasing their commitment to ARM technology, and more new customers choosing ARM technology for the first time. We have also seen our royalty revenue continue to grow faster than industry revenues as the ARM Partnership gains share in our target markets.

2012 will bring exciting opportunities and challenges as ARM enters competitive new markets where we are well positioned to succeed with leading technology, an innovative business model and a thriving ecosystem of Partners. As our customers are designing more ARM technology into their widening product portfolios, ARM is investing in the development of new products. These products will drive further long-term growth in our revenues, profits and cash.”

Since I started this blog on January 1st 2010 (I was before video-blogging at TechVideoBlog.com since 2004), the ARM stock has gone up 343%.

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Engadget.com text-interviews ARM co-founder John Biggs

Posted by Charbax – December 20, 2011

Acorn needed more CPU power in its machines. 8-bit was no longer enough, so it was looking at 16-bit. Initially, we asked Intel for samples of their 80286 processor, but they refused. That’s funny, because ARM is now perceived as a competitive threat to Intel, and you can trace that all the way back to the seminal moment when they refused to give us those samples. We somewhat arrogantly thought ‘we can do this ourselves’ and we decided to build our own 32-bit silicon. If Intel had been more generous, Acorn might have built its Archimedes computer around the 80286 processor — it would have changed the whole landscape.

Read the whole interview at: http://engadget.com/2011/12/20/the-engadget-interview-arm-co-founder-john-biggs/

ARM releases free DS-5 Community Edition toolkit for native code Android acceleration

Posted by Charbax – November 29, 2011

Here’s the press release:

ARM today announced the release of the ARM® Development Studio 5 (DS-5™) Community Edition (CE) – a free-to-use edition of its reference software development toolkit. The new edition is dedicated to the Android application developer community and helps them create native software for compute intensive tasks that can run up to 4 times faster than Java code. DS-5 CE complements the standard SDK and NDK Android development kits by offering developers a unique set of tools to help them achieve the performance and energy-efficiency advantages made possible when ARM native code is used in Android applications.

DS-5 Community Edition includes limited, but essential functionality from the premium DS-5 toolkit to help solve common Android application developer pain points. It achieves this by providing an integrated graphical debugger for NDK-generated code and visibility of advanced processor information, including ARM NEON™ Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) registers. The new toolkit permits development of Java and C/C++ code in the same Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) to maximise productivity and ease of use.

DS-5 Community Edition features a tailored version of the ARM Streamline™ Performance Analyzer for use with compatible Android development platforms. Streamline captures detailed, system-wide performance statistics from a variety of sources which helps developers to locate hotspots in their code and isolate potential causes. Platform builders can add support for Streamline by integrating an open source driver available from the Linaro website.

“With over half a million apps on the Android market today, developers need to deliver an outstanding user experience to succeed commercially,” said John Cornish, executive vice president and general manager, system design division, ARM. “ARM DS-5 Community Edition offers developers an easy to use environment for debugging and optimizing C/C++ code. This allows them to take full advantage of ARM processor technology using native code to deliver the performance and functionality that consumers demand.”

Availability
The DS-5 CE is available free-of-charge for use by individuals and organizations with annual revenue of $100,000 or less, and up to 10 employees. DS-5 CE is available from ARM and can be downloaded now. For more information go to:

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ARM Mali-T658 announced

Posted by Charbax – November 10, 2011

ARM Media Processing Division’s Jem Davies and Ian Smythe talk about the launch of the new Mali-T658 GPU. It can start to appear in devices by the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013. This is like having a 250 Gigaflops super computer in your pocket. The performance is anywhere from 2x to 4x faster than the Mali-T604 announced last year. Now supporting configurations up to 8 cores. It easilly supports 4K resolutions. It’s compatible with the newly announced ARMv8 64-bit architecture. The Mali-T658 delivers desktop-class performance, achieved by doubling the number of GPU cores, doubling the number of arithmetic pipelines within each core and improving the compiler and pipeline efficiency. Find more information at http://www.arm.com/products/multimedia/mali-graphics-hardware/mali-t658.php

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ARMv8 Technology Preview, a highly technical presentation video

Posted by Charbax – November 5, 2011

Right after the announcement of the ARMv8 64-bit architecture at ARM TechCon, Richard Grisenthwaite, Lead Architect and Fellow at ARM did this following highly technical presentation to a huge packed room of ARM industry insiders and experts, here’s the full video with slideshows as released on the official ARMflix YouTube channel:


At the end of the video you can click through to Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of this 45-minute technology preview.

Mike Muller, ARM CTO, ARMv8 64-bit launch interview

Posted by Charbax – October 28, 2011

ARM launches the 64bit ARMv8 Architecture. Here’s my interview with ARM’s CTO Mike Muller on the day of the announcement.


Simon Segars, ARM Inc President, Interview at ARM TechCon 2011

Posted by Charbax – October 28, 2011

Simon Segars is the President of the US division of ARM. Here’s an interview with him at ARM TechCon 2011 about the state of the ARM industry.

ARM Cortex-A15

Posted by Charbax – October 28, 2011

Nandan Nayampally, ARM’s Director of CPU Product Marketing provides an overview of the new and upcoming ARM Cortex-A15 processor, with its new optimized design it can reach huge new ARM Powered performance.

ARM Mali Graphics news at ARM TechCon 2011

Posted by Charbax – October 28, 2011

The ARM Media Processing Division’s Jem Davies and Ian Smythe talk about the latest news on the ARM Mali Graphics technology, implementation, performance and the technological direction which we can look forward to.