Friday 16 November 2012

What are ARM based processors

Smartphones and tables are taking over and are quickly replacing laptops, netbooks and PDAs as the gadgets of  choice for persons on the move, but what makes them tick?
What is it that enables these gadgets to be so powerful, slim and light-weight with such great battery life?

Well, operating system aside, it's all about the processor or CPU - the ARM-based processor to be exact.

So what are ARM-based processor?

An ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) processor is a very compact processor (it is often soldered onto the motherboard) that has a very low operating temperature and uses very little power while doing quite a bit of work (this is my simplified definition).

It means that unlike Intel and AMD power hungry x86 (desktop and laptop) processors, ARM-based processors can be placed in smaller devices with smaller batteries and perform pretty good without having any need for heat-sinks and/or cooling fans or having to be constantly plugged in to a charging source.

It's important to note that up until recently Intel had not shown any big interest in developing ARM-type processors, but all this is changing now - Intel is now determined to be on the inside of these mobile gadgets.

1 comment:

  1. This is what sets Windows 8 RT apart from the other versions - it is designed to run on these types of processors instead of the x86 ones that you'd normally find in laptop and desktop personal computers

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