2019-06-26

Dave Jaggar & The History of ARM Microprocessors (video)

Dave Jaggar: "A History of ARM Microprocessor and it's Rise and Fall"

A "Talks at Google" video published Jun 20, 2019,: Dave Jaggar discusses his inspiring career that led to the ARM architecture which effectively powers the digital world, being the reason that your phone is small and doesn't burn a hole in your pocket. Moderator: Raymond Blum. Transcript (auto-generated, unedited).

In the late 1980’s Acorn, a British one-hit-wonder computer company, faced imminent extinction, with its only assets being 18 months of life support rations and perhaps the worst microprocessor ever designed. What they did right was to hire Dave Jaggar, with the ink still wet on his master's thesis.  Over eight years Dave systematically defined the entire ARM architecture, enabling  it to be a popular embedded controller for the digital revolution, with around 100 billion units shipped.  As ARM’s Head of Architecture Design, Dave authored the ARM Architectural Reference Manual and is the Founding Director of the ARM Austin Design Center. More on ARM architecture.

ARM Holdings is a British multinational semiconductor and software design company, owned by SoftBank Group and its Vision Fund. Processors based on designs licensed from ARM, or designed by licensees of one of the ARM instruction set architectures, are used in all classes of computing devices (including in space). ARM is viewed as the most important chip design infrastructure provider in the world as its microchips go into more than 90% of world’s mobile devices.

On June 22, 2019, SoftBank Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son said he wants to  re-list ARM Holdings Plc as a publicly traded company within the next five years (the British chipmaker was acquired for $32 billion in 2016):
"I don’t know which market it will be, but ARM will be preparing for IPO within the next five years. Arm management is all excited about it. We are excited"--SoftBank’s founding Chairman and CEO Son, June 22, 2019.
Arm Limited a/k/a Arm Holdings
  • Number of employees: about 6,250 (2018)
  • Owner: SoftBank Group 75%; Vision Fund 25%
  • Headquarters: Cambridge, England, UK
  • Domain: arm.com
Jaggar's book: Arm Architecture Reference Manual


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