ARM Goes 64-Bit With Its New ARMv8 Chip Architecture 156
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the new-and-improved dept.
from the new-and-improved dept.
angry tapir writes "In less than a decade, a microprocessor core could be no bigger than a red blood cell, the CTO of ARM has predicted. ARM has already helped develop a prototype, implantable device for monitoring eye-pressure in glaucoma patients that measures just 1 cubic millimeter, CTO Mike Muller said at ARM's TechCon conference. At the conference the company also introduced its first 64-bit chip. The ARMv8 adds 64-bit addressing capabilities, an improvement over the current ARMv7-A architecture, which is capable of up to 40-bit addressing. The architecture puts ARM into more direct competition with Intel and its 64-bit Xeon processors."
Architecture (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a better description of the new Architecture:
ARMv8 Architecture PDF [arm.com]
Really needed? (Score:2, Informative)
Is 64-bit really needed in mobile devices? It increases the number of wires and data transfer, which means less power efficiency.
Not just Intel (Score:5, Informative)
The architecture puts ARM into more direct competition with Intel and its 64-bit Xeon processors.
Gee, what about AMD and the AMD64 architecture that they developed? You know, the one that Intel eventually had to adopt (license?) when their 64-bit Itanium didn't quite live up to their expectations of being the next architecture that everyone moved to?
Oh, and ARM Holdings don't make chips. They design architectures and implementations that others license and put into actual chips. The summary wasn't so clear on that, and it's a point that lots of people often overlook.
Re:Direct Competition? (Score:5, Informative)
ARM is *NOT* based on the 68000 design, it was an original CPU design by Acorn computers of Cambridge, England (ARM originally stood for Acorn Risc Machine) for their desktop computers in the late 1980s and during the 90s. ARM bears absolutely no resemblance to 68000.
Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber, the designers of the ARM, were inspired by the simple architecture of the 6502, but the ARM is not based on that either (the ARM does not resemble the 6502 either, nor is it based on the 6502).