ARM to elbow its way into desktop and server markets

UK firm's ARMv8 64-bit design to challenge Intel and AMD

The UK's largest remaining IT company, Cambridge-based ARM Holdings, is not used to the limelight.

It quietly makes relatively modest profits by designing reference architectures for the billions of processors that power up to 95 per cent of the world's mobile phones and a host of other consumer electronic devices, including Apple iPads. The company's pre-tax profits for the nine months to 30 September 2011 reached £161m based on revenue of £354m, while profit for the whole year in 2010 was £168m.

ARM is plotting the next stage in its growth with the launch of the ARMv8 reference architecture, its first 64-bit CPU design, which ARM's marketing department and early vendor soundings suggest will eventually find its way into not only desktop PCs and servers, but even supercomputers.

"The new ARMv8 architecture will expand the reach of ARM processor-based solutions into consumer and enterprise applications where extended virtual addressing and 64-bit data processing are required," said the company in a statement.

So far, ARM's success has been largely down to the energy-efficiency of its designs, which obviously appeals to makers of mobile devices. In May this year, research firm IDC forecast that processors based on the ARM architecture would make up more than 15 per cent of the PC chip market by 2015, although those forecasts did not include tablet PCs where the company's designs have already gained considerable traction.

The next version of Microsoft Windows will support ARM technology, for example, while silicon manufacturer NVIDIA is partnering with the company to develop new system on a chip (SoC) processors, alongside Qualcomm and Texas Instuments.

"This consolidation [within SoCs] enables smaller, thinner devices while reducing the amount of power required for the device, increasing battery life and making possible always-on and always-connected functionality," said Microsoft.

ARM doesn't make silicon components itself, rather its 1,700 staff provide the engineering nous and intellectual property (IP) that other manufacturers use to produce chips of their own.

ARM receives an upfront licence fee for the original IP and royalty on every CPU or wafer produced thereafter.

ARM to elbow its way into desktop and server markets

UK firm's ARMv8 64-bit design to challenge Intel and AMD

The company therefore relies on a partner ecosystem willing to adopt, build, market and distribute ARM-based CPUs on its behalf, itself a continuing challenge given the need to persuade not only silicon manufacturers to adopt the reference design, but also software companies like Microsoft and Linux firm Red Hat to build architectural support into their operating systems.

On paper at least, ARM has the support of HP, for example, although not yet for the 64-bit ARMv8 design.

Instead, the server giant will use Calxeda's ARM-based EnergyCore Cortex 32-bit CPUs in its Redstone Server Development Platform, designed for testing systems containing more than 2,800 servers in a single rack, and aimed primarily at low power applications like web servers and social media platforms. Calxeda's ARM-based chips use about 85W of power per quad processor board.

"This is a huge explosion in demand for this type of very dense, low-cost compute resource, which now power up to 60 per cent of all server units,"
HP ISS product manager Julian Keetch told Computing.

"It is only 32-bit for now – 64-bit capabilities are not in production yet – but we will be inviting customers to trial the chips over the next 12-18 months."

AMD was unavailable for comment on any potential threat to its market share, but Intel is confident that ARM can only really compete in the niche microserver market, where its designs will compete with Intel's its own Atom CPUs.

Nor are the timescales for ARM 64-bit chips enough to make any of the established players, all of whom have their own roadmaps for the kind of energy-efficient processors that ARM excels at, even slightly nervous.

"We welcome competition but can't really comment on architectures that have no performance metrics or specifics around what, when and how they will launch," Intel vice president and worldwide director of enterprise solutions sales, Gordon Graylish, told Computing.

As Graylish points out, it is still very early days for ARM's foray into the 64-bit arena. The 64-bit ARMv8 architecture specifications are available now to partners under licence, but prototype chips are not expected until 2014 at the earliest, said the company.

Intel says it will offer microserver Atom chips that use less than 10W per CPU by 2014 at the latest, as well as SoC chips that will compete with ARM in tablet PCs and smartphones.

"Everything is coming down in terms of power consumption – most of the extreme low power stuff started out in the consumer market and there is a seeming inevitability that it will move into the enterprise," said Gartner vice president and fellow Stephen Prentice. "Though enterprise IT departments will always throw up their hands and say 'it will never fly' at first, two years down the line they are generally rushing to adopt."