Computing · 1985

ARM architecture

A low-power processor design that now ships in the tens of billions.

Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber at Acorn designed the ARM1 with about 25,000 transistors. Its efficiency and licensing model made ARM the architecture of phones and much else; over 250 billion ARM chips have shipped.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

RISC 1980

What it led to 3

Smartphone 2007
Smartphone SoC (Apple A4) 2010
Apple M1 2020

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Transistors per microprocessor Latest: 58.2B transistors (2021) Source: Our World in Data

Mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people Latest: 112 per 100 people (2025) Source: Our World in Data