StrongARM

processor A collaborative project between Digital EquipmentCorporation and Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. (ARM) announced

on 1995-02-06 licensing the ARM RISC architecture to

Digital Semiconductor for the development of

high-performance, low power microprocessors.

The StrongARM family of 32-bit RISC products developed under

the agreement are faster versions of the existing ARM

processors with a somewhat different instruction set. They

are targetted at applications such as next-generation

personal digital assistants with improved user interfaces

and communications; interactive television and set-top

products; video games and multimedia edutainment systems

with realistic imaging, motion and sound; and digital imaging,

including low cost digital image capture and photo-quality

scanning and printing.

The StrongARM family has limited software compatibility with

the ARM6, ARM7 and ARM8 families due to its separate

caches for data and instructions which causes

self-modifying code to fail.

The SA-110 is the first member of the family.

(1998-09-07)