Professional Embedded ARM Development

Appendix C

ARM Core Versions

Everything started with the ARM1, and ARM2 quickly fixed or improved any weak points of the ARM1. ARM3 was once again an internal chip, and no major projects used these chips. ARM’s commercial success started with the ARM6 chip.

ARM6

ARM6 was based on the ARMv3 architecture and was the first core to have full 32-bit memory address space (previous cores were 26-bit). It ran at 5V and had 33,500 transistors. The ARM60 was capable of 10 MIPS running at 12 MHz, but the later ARM600 was capable of 28 MIPS running at 33 MHz. The ARM600 also included 4 KB of unified cache, something that was previously developed for the ARM3. A cheaper version was soon delivered: the ARM610. Like its predecessor, it had 4 KB of cache but had no coprocessor bus and was slightly less powerful (17 MIPS at 20 MHz).

Panasonic introduced the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, a games console based on the ARM60 in 1993. The Apple Newton 100 series were powered with an ARM610 core, one of the first mobile devices using ARM cores.

ARM7

In 1993, ARM introduced the ARM700 processor, using the ARMv3 core. It doubled the ARM6’s cache, to a full 8 KB of unified cache. It was also the first processor that could be powered by a 3.3V supply. Its performance improvement was between 50 and 100 percent, and the 3.3V version also used one-half the power of a 5V ARM6. ARM worked hard on the power consumption of the ARM7, using 0.8μm CMOS technology instead of 1μm CMOS technology. ARM7 was ARM’s push ...