ARM Unveils New Processor for Smartphones

Chip designer ARM Holdings PLC, keeping its focus squarely on its core smartphone market, unveiled on Tuesday new technologies for mobile devices that it says will be much faster while using less energy.

The Cambridge, England, company, whose technology is built into more than 95% of smartphones, said more than 10 companies have licensed its new Cortex A-72 processor design.

"We are still adamant that we are on a path where the phone becomes the primary compute device," said Ian Ferguson, an ARM vice president of marketing.

The new technology is expected to be used in phones delivered to customers in 2016.

The company said the new processor design is 3.5 times faster than the ARM technology used in most smartphones sold in 2014. The company expects most chips based on the design to be manufactured using an advanced production process from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

While ARM's announcement emphasized smartphone performance, the company said the new chip was also suited to tablets and clamshell-style computers like laptops.

"You will see how it gets into other devices as the year progresses," said Nandan Nayampally, another of ARM's marketing VPs.

As phones become more powerful, ARM executives said, people are using them for more complex tasks, such as shooting and editing video, that require faster processing.

"Gaming has clearly moved from PCs and is coming onto the phone," Mr. Ferguson said. "This obviously is driving more performance requirements."

Mr. Ferguson said ARM's conversations with corporate chief information officers suggested that many have a desire to replace desktop computers with smartphones. But he acknowledged that desktop computers still tend to be more convenient for chores like creating sophisticated text documents and slide presentations.

ARM-based chips, beyond their widespread use in smartphones, are found in tablet computers from such companies as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. That market has slowed lately, however. The research firm IDC said on Monday that annual tablet shipments fell for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Write to Lisa Fleisher at [e-mail] and Don Clark at [e-mail]

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