This is the origin story of technology super heroes: the creators and founders of ARM, the company that is responsible for the processors found inside 95% of the world’s mobile devices today. This is also the evolution story of how three companies – Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm – put ARM technology in the hands of billions of people through smartphones, tablets, music players, and more.
It was anything but a straight line from idea to success for ARM. The story starts with the triumph of BBC Micro engineers Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson, who make the audacious decision to design their own microprocessor – and it works the first time. The question becomes, how to sell it? Part I follows ARM as its founders launch their own company, select a new leader, a new strategy, and find themselves partnered with Apple, TI, Nokia, and other companies just as digital technology starts to unleash mobile devices. ARM grows rapidly, even as other semiconductor firms struggle in the dot com meltdown, and establishes itself as a standard for embedded RISC processors.
Apple aficionados will find the opening of Part II of interest the moment Steve Jobs returns and changes the direction toward fulfilling consumer dreams. Samsung devotees will see how that firm evolved from its earliest days in consumer electronics and semiconductors through a philosophical shift to innovation. Qualcomm followers will learn much of their history as it plays out from satellite communications to development of a mobile phone standard and emergence as a leading fabless semiconductor company.
If ARM could be summarized in one word, it would be “collaboration.” Throughout this story, from Foreword to Epilogue, efforts to develop an ecosystem are highlighted. Familiar names such as Google, Intel, Mediatek, Microsoft, Motorola, TSMC, and others are interwoven throughout. The evolution of ARM’s first 25 years as a company wraps up with a shift to its next strategy: the Internet of Things, the ultimate connector for people and devices.
Research for this story is extensive, simplifying a complex mobile industry timeline and uncovering critical points where ARM and other companies made fateful and sometimes surprising decisions. Rare photos, summary diagrams and tables, and unique perspectives from insiders add insight to this important telling of technology history.
Author(s): Don Dingee, Daniel Nenni, Sir Robin Saxby
Publisher: SemiWiki LLC
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: 272
City: Danville, CA
Mobile Unleashed-cover-front.pdf
Mobile Unleashed - interior - rev1.pdf
Foreword
Prologue
Challenging the Mainstream
More Than a Cool Idea
Chapter 1: RISC-y Business
Computers for Everyone
Reversal of Fortunes
Fast, for an 8-bit Machine
If You Can’t Join Them …
ARM1: A Chip is Born
Chapter 2: Working it Out
Olivetti Rides Into Town
How to Dabble in Business Computers
It’s Not Easy Being Different
ARM2 Catches the Tube
Cloners Take Control
Withering Fire from Workstations
ARM3 Plows Ahead
Chapter 3: Writing on the Wall
Opening the Apple Door
Friends in the Neighborhood
Best Strategy Available
Applying for College
Navigating Toward a Vision
Keeping Up Appointments
Overpromise and Underperform
Style, Substance, and Saxby
Chapter 4: In the Right Hands
Floating-Point for Acorn, ARM6 for Apple
Pocketing the Newton, Seeking $3T
Two Failures in Recognition
Cell Phone Zero
1G Rolls Across the Globe
Fight for a 2G Future
Licensed to Process
Dealing for DSPs
Thumbing the Way Ahead
Chapter 5: Coming on Strong
Custom Chips, ARM7, and a Star
Fall of Hobbit, Rise of Consulting
StrongARM and ARM7TDMI Arrive
Adoption and Advancing Processes
ARM8, SA-110, and a new EPOC
RISC Leaders, Windows CE, and Loyalty
Symbian, Nokia 6110, and ARM9TDMI
Hijacking and Brinksmanship
Solid Profits and Momentum
Chapter 6: Making the Cortex-A List
ARM’s IPO, and ARM10
Original Partners Part Ways
Foundries, Investments, Extensions
Smartphones Come, Holdouts Go
Thriving in a Meltdown
XScale, ARM11, and OS Contenders
AMBA 3, TrustZone, MIPI, and a Gift
MPCore, NEON, and “The Keynote”
ARMv7, Cortex-A8, and Android
Calm before Disruption
Chapter 7: From Cupertino …
Better Call Steve
Design and Digital Dreams
You’re Doing It Wrong, Here’s an iPod
ROKR Phones You’ll Never Buy
“Project Purple” and the iPhone
Faster Networks and Faster Chips
Now Serving Number 4
Namaste, and a “Swift” Response
“Cyclone” and The 64-bit Question
Calling the Shots in Fabless
Chapter 8: To Seoul, via Austin
Considering All Aspects
Developing DRAMs
Mountains in the Way
New Management, Fired Up
Finding Digital Footing
An Unprecedented ARM License
For a Few Flash Chips More
Smartphone Sampler
Your Loss is Our Foundry
On Second Thought, Android Works
Exynos Takes Over the Galaxy
Avoiding the Zero-Sum Game
Chapter 9: Press ‘Q’ to Connect
Actual Rocket Scientists
Linked to San Diego
Programming the Modem
“Let’s Do It Again”
Space Truckin’
Just Keep Talking
Get In and Hang On
Roadblock at Six Million
Detour for Better Cores
“Scorpion”, “Hexagon”, and Gobi
“Krait”, Tiers, and an A/B Strategy
What Comes After Phones?
Chapter 10: An Industry in Transition
Early Exits for Big Names
Break Glass in Case of Fire
Pounding the Tablet
Asian ARM Fusion
Plunder and Pillage
The Atom Contra Affair
Restocking the Shelves
Reigniting Mobile Innovation
Wearables and the IoT
Changing the World with One Chip
Epilogue
Endnotes
About the Authors.pdf
About the Authors
Mobile Unleashed-cover-back.pdf
