ARM introduces v9, its first new chip architecture in a decade
ARMv9 will power the next 300 billion ARM-based devices.
You don't have to look far to find ARM chips. They're everywhere, from our phones to laptops and even some of the cloud servers that power the countless online services we depend on every day. And if ARM has its way, its designs will only become more ubiquitous over the next few years thanks to its first new architecture in a decade, ARMv9. With v9, ARM focused on three primary areas: security, AI-related processing and overall computing power.
ARMv9 includes the company's new Confidential Compute Architecture, or CCA for short. It will enable a new "Realms" concept. ARM says all apps will have the opportunity to leverage Realms to protect their code and any private data they're processing by executing in a different environment from other software.
ARMv9 chips will also feature the latest version of the company's Scalable Vector Extensions (SVE) technology. Developed with help from Fujitsu, it's one of the technologies in use by the world's fastest supercomputer. The company says its new SVE2 platform will give ARMv9 chips an edge when processing 5G, machine learning, and virtual and augmented reality workloads locally on their CPU.
And when it comes to raw computing power, ARM claims v9 will enable performance increases of more than 30 percent over the next generations of mobile and cloud CPUs, thanks, in part due to its Total Compute design philosophy.
ARM didn't say when the first ARMv9 chips will arrive in the hands of consumers, but the company is bullish about its prospects. It says v9 will power 300 billion new ARM-based chips. At the rate ARM chips are being shipped at the moment, the company estimates 100 percent of all the world's shared data will soon be processed by ARM chips, whether that's on an individual device or in the cloud.
