The ARM logo
|
|
Designer | ARM Holdings |
---|---|
Bits | 32-bit, 64-bit |
Introduced | 1985 |
Design | RISC |
Type | Register-Register |
Branching | Condition code, compare and branch |
Open | Proprietary |
Introduced | 2011 |
---|---|
Version | ARMv8-A, ARMv8.1-A, ARMv8.2-A, ARMv8.3-A |
Encoding | AArch64/A64 and AArch32/A32 use 32-bit instructions, T32 (Thumb-2) uses mixed 16- and 32-bit instructions. ARMv7 user-space compatibility |
Endianness | Bi (little as default) |
Extensions | All mandatory: Thumb-2, NEON, Jazelle, VFPv4-D16, VFPv4 |
Registers | |
General purpose | 31× 64-bit integer registers |
Floating point | 32× 128-bit registers for scalar 32- and 64-bit FP or SIMD FP or integer; or cryptography |
Version | ARMv8-R, ARMv8-M, ARMv7-A, ARMv7-R, ARMv7E-M, ARMv7-M, ARMv6-M |
---|---|
Encoding | 32-bit except Thumb-2 extensions use mixed 16- and 32-bit instructions. |
Endianness | Bi (little as default); Cortex-M is fixed and can't change on the fly. |
Extensions | Thumb-2, NEON, Jazelle, DSP, Saturated, FPv4-SP, FPv5 |
Registers | |
General purpose | 15× 32-bit integer registers; R15 is PC (26-bit addressing in older), R14 is link register. |
Floating point | Up to 32× 64-bit registers, SIMD/floating-point (optional) |
Version | ARMv6, ARMv5, ARMv4T, ARMv3, ARMv2 |
---|---|
Encoding | 32-bit except Thumb extension uses mixed 16- and 32-bit instructions. |
Endianness | Bi (little as default) in ARMv3 and above |
Extensions | Thumb, Jazelle |
Registers | |
General purpose | 15× 32-bit integer registers; R15 is PC (26-bit addressing in older), R14 is link register. |
ARM, originally Acorn RISC Machine, later Advanced RISC Machine, is a family of reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architectures for computer processors, configured for various environments. British company ARM Holdings develops the architecture and licenses it to other companies, who design their own products that implement one of those architectures—including systems-on-chips (SoC) and systems-on-modules (SoM) that incorporate memory, interfaces, radios, etc. It also designs cores that implement this instruction set and licenses these designs to a number of companies that incorporate those core designs into their own products.
Processors that have a RISC architecture typically require fewer transistors than those with a complex instruction set computing (CISC) architecture (such as the x86 processors found in most personal computers), which improves cost, power consumption, and heat dissipation. These characteristics are desirable for light, portable, battery-powered devices—including smartphones, laptops and tablet computers, and other embedded systems. For supercomputers, which consume large amounts of electricity, ARM could also be a power-efficient solution.
ARM Holdings periodically releases updates to architectures and core designs. All of them support a 32-bit address space (only pre-ARMv3 chips, made before ARM Holdings was formed, as in original Acorn Archimedes, had smaller) and 32-bit arithmetic; instructions for ARM Holdings' cores have 32-bit fixed-length instructions, but later versions of the architecture also support a variable-length instruction set that provides both 32- and 16-bit instructions for improved code density. Some older cores can also provide hardware execution of Java bytecodes. The ARMv8-A architecture, announced in October 2011, adds support for a 64-bit address space and 64-bit arithmetic with its new 32-bit fixed-length instruction set.