unwind 5 days ago

Intel are believed to hold an Arm architectural license [1] as far as I know, they have made Arm-based things in the past.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#Archit...

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  • stephen_g 5 days ago

    If they didn’t have one already they would have presumably acquired one when they bought Altera - they had SoC FPGAs that have ARM cores hooked up to an FPGA fabric.

    They have since spun off Altera but I imagine they’d still have a license.

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    • monocasa 5 days ago

      I'm not sure Altera would have had an architectural license. You don't need that to hook a hard core up to your fpga fabric.

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chasil 5 days ago

Intel's first exposure was the purchase of DEC StrongARM in the 90s, although that particular product line was sold to Marvel.

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  • notherhack 5 days ago

    Nit: Marvel makes comics. Marvell Technologies (two l's) makes chips with ARM CPUs in them, mostly for datacenter gear.

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    • robotnikman 4 days ago

      I remember one of my first PC builds had a RAID card with a Marvell controller. I can still visualize the logo on the POST screen

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chasil 5 days ago

The actual ARM1 processor was built for the "tube" connection on a 6502-based 8-bit BBC Microcomputer in the early 1980s.

These two articles are popular for the details of that history. ARM dominates the second.

https://www.theregister.com/2012/05/02/unsung_heroes_of_tech...

https://www.theregister.com/2012/05/03/unsung_heroes_of_tech...

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  • ajross 5 days ago

    I'm pretty sure the grandparent's question was "What IP is on the ARM SOC being fabricated?" and not "Tell me about the history of Acorn RISC Machines".

    And the answer isn't clear. The fact that it's been given an Intel code name ("Deer Creek Falls") implies that it's an internal design, so presumably it's an easily-licensed/synthesized core like a Cortex X1 or whatnot. Certainly Intel isn't expected to be designing custom ARM hardware.

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