Arm

The Cambridge-born company whose chip designs sit inside almost every smartphone and a growing share of cars, devices and data centres.

About Arm

Arm designs the processor blueprints that sit inside most of the world's smartphones, as well as in cars, smartwatches, smart-home gadgets and the servers that run the cloud. It does not make chips itself. Instead it licenses its designs to other companies, such as Microsoft, Google, Meta, NVIDIA and Samsung, who turn them into finished chips. Arm says more than 350 billion Arm-based chips have been shipped, and its own history page says over 99 per cent of the world's smartphones are based on Arm technology.

The story begins in Cambridge. Arm's roots go back to Acorn Computers, founded in 1978 by Chris Curry and Hermann Hauser, which made the BBC Micro that many British schools used. Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson designed the first ARM processor for Acorn's computers. In November 1990 Arm was set up as a separate company, Advanced RISC Machines, in a joint venture between Acorn, Apple and VLSI Technology, started by twelve of the engineers working out of a barn near Cambridge. Sir Robin Saxby, its first chief executive, introduced the licensing model that still defines the business. Arm is headquartered in Cambridge and has been owned by SoftBank since 2016.

Arm describes its aim as building the future of computing on Arm, together with its partners and for everyone. The original idea, the company says, was to design a computer that could run on a battery, which is why Arm designs are known for using very little power. Today it wants to bring AI capability to everything from tiny sensors at the edge of a network to large data centres in the cloud.

Landmark moments include the Arm7 processor in the hit Nokia 6110 phone, the big.LITTLE design that pairs fast and low-power cores, the Neoverse designs for cloud computing, and the Armv9 architecture announced in 2021. Arm says more than 22 million software developers work with its technology, and it supports students and academics through education and research programmes.

Arm lists apprenticeships, internships and graduate programmes in the UK. Its Engineering Pathways internships cover hardware, software, machine learning, security, verification, architecture and technical writing, and listed roles mention Cambridge, Manchester, Bristol and Sheffield. Its Cambridge site describes a culture of teamwork and shared knowledge across disciplines, with staff volunteering to mentor STEM students.

What they do

• {'desc': 'The core designs that other companies build chips from, including the Armv9 architecture.', 'title': 'Processor architectures'}
• {'desc': 'Neoverse designs for servers and AI in the cloud.', 'title': 'Cloud and data-centre designs'}
• {'desc': 'Mali designs that power graphics in phones and devices.', 'title': 'Graphics designs'}
• {'desc': 'Software tools used by millions of developers building on Arm.', 'title': 'Developer tools and platforms'}
• {'desc': 'Platforms and programmes for students and academics.', 'title': 'Education programmes'}

Key facts

• Founded: Cambridge, UK, November 1990 (roots in Acorn Computers, 1978)
• Headquarters: Cambridge, UK
• Owned by SoftBank since 2016
• First ARM processor designed by Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson
• UK early-careers routes: apprenticeships, internships, graduate programmes

Website: www.arm.com