page_title: ARM architecture
section_title: Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. – Arm6
hierarchical_section_title: ARM architecture / History / Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. – Arm6
caption_attribution_description: English: Die shot of ARM610 microprocessor made by GEC Plessey Semiconductors.
context_page_description: Arm, previously Advanced RISC Machine, originally Acorn RISC Machine, is a family of reduced instruction set computing architectures for computer processors, configured for various environments. 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 and systems-on-modules 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 architecture, 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—‌but are also useful for servers and desktops to some degree. For supercomputers, which consume large amounts of electricity, Arm is also a power-efficient solution.
context_section_description: In the late 1980s, Apple Computer and VLSI Technology started working with Acorn on newer versions of the Arm core. In 1990, Acorn spun off the design team into a new company named Advanced RISC Machines Ltd., which became Arm Ltd when its parent company, Arm Holdings plc, floated on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ in 1998. The new Apple-Arm work would eventually evolve into the Arm6, first released in early 1992. Apple used the Arm6-based Arm610 as the basis for their Apple Newton PDA.
caption: Die of an Arm610 microprocessor
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