Re: Advice on system purchase

[John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com>]

Stan Hoeppner writes:
> No, I mean millions [of ARM cpus].  One billion chips per year would
> equal 1 for every 7 humans on the planet, and that's simply
> impossible.  Over 3 billion people have never used an electronic
> device.  That's almost half the Earth's population.  Do the math.
 
>From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture>:
 In 2005 about 98% of the more than one billion mobile phones sold each
 year used at least one ARM processor.
 ...
 ARM licensed about 1.6 billion cores in 2005. In 2005, about 1 billion
 ARM cores went into mobile phones.[13] By January 2008, over 10
 billion ARM cores had been built, and in 2008 iSuppli predicted that
 by 2011, 5 billion ARM cores will be shipping per year.[14] As of
 January 2011, ARM stated that over 15 billion ARM processors have
 shipped.[15]

> ...if you're an exec at ARM, would you consider such a push viable?
> Let alone profitable?  No, you wouldn't.

ARM doesn't manufacture anything.  They license their designs and
patents.  A few of the licensees:
 
 Analog Devices, AppliedMicro, Atmel, Broadcom, Cirrus Logic, Energy
 Micro, Faraday Technology, Freescale, Fujitsu, Intel (through its
 settlement with Digital Equipment Corporation), IBM, Infineon
 Technologies, Marvell Technology Group, Nintendo, Nvidia, NXP
 Semiconductors, OKI, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sharp, STMicroelectronics, and
 Texas Instruments

There are many more.
-- 
John Hasler