Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Signs License With ARM
G143 and several other readers let us know that Microsoft has signed a licensing deal with ARM. "Microsoft signed an agreement with the UK-based ARM, giving Microsoft access to some of the chip designer's intellectual property. The two companies have worked together since 1997, but Ian Drew, ARM's EVP of marketing, said this is the first time Microsoft has become a licensee of ARM's architecture, a move which will allow Microsoft to design their own microarchitecture. Other licensees include Qualcomm, Marvell, and Infineon. Neither company would reveal the cost of the license. Speculation about Microsoft's intentions includes wondering whether the company is taking aim at the iPad, or perhaps looking to produce a next-generation Xbox without the 360's heat problems."
Is the soon to be announced licensing with And A Leg Technologies.
"... ARMs supporting a CLR environment...."
Actually, that would be my guess: Microsoft wants to make an ARM chip that implements the Common Language Runtime in the microarchitecture, just as some ARM chips now implement the Java runtime in the microarchitecture. They may also want to add instructions to bring even more Trusted Platform Computing Model down into the ARM core.
They may also want to make an ARM core that implements a graphics accelerator more friendly to the Direct3D model (and less friendly to OpenGL ES) than is currently available.
www.eFax.com are spammers
It is something of a story, though: "Many semiconductor or IC design firms hold ARM licenses". Microsoft is, historically, neither of those things and; because of the number of existing ARM licensees, they can already get virtually any ARM based SoC configuration that you could reasonably desire, at highly competitive prices, off the shelf, without any sort of license.
Microsoft using ARM cores would be a total non-story. I'm pretty sure that they already do, in a number of capacities. Becoming an ARM licensee, though, means that you have a plan that goes well beyond shoving some off-the-shelf chips into your product. Since MS doesn't seem like a logical entrant into the chip fab market, this development means that they have some kind of design demand up their sleeve that the market for commodity SoCs hasn't delivered....
Most (all?) Windows Mobile devices already run on ARM. Windows CE has supported ARM since 1997.
It also doesn't make much sense for Microsoft to change the xbox architecture that much, since it has always been basically a PC and it has all the same systems like DirectX, .NET and the usual compatibility with Windows.
I just had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't 2001.
They abandoned the PC-like architecture with the 360. It now runs a PowerPC hybrid chip.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.