ARM Basics - Application Fields and Characteristics of ARM Microprocessors

1. Application fields of ARM microprocessors

So far, the application of ARM microprocessors and technologies has penetrated into almost every field:

1. Industrial control field: As a 32-bit RISC architecture, microcontroller chips based on ARM core not only occupy most of the market share of high-end microcontroller market, but also gradually expand to the application field of low-end microcontrollers. The low power consumption and high cost performance of ARM microcontrollers have challenged the traditional 8-bit/16-bit microcontrollers.

2. Wireless communication field: Currently, more than 85% of wireless communication devices use ARM technology. With its high performance and low cost, ARM's position in this field is increasingly consolidated.

3. Network applications: With the promotion of broadband technology, ADSL chips using ARM technology are gradually gaining competitive advantages. In addition, ARM has been optimized in voice and video processing and has gained wide support, which has also posed a challenge to the application field of DSP.

4. Consumer electronics: ARM technology is widely used in currently popular digital audio players, digital set-top boxes and game consoles.

5. Imaging and security products: Most of the popular digital cameras and printers use ARM technology. The 32-bit SIM smart cards in mobile phones also use ARM technology.

In addition, ARM microprocessors and technologies are also applied to many different fields and will be more widely used in the future.

2. Characteristics of ARM microprocessor

ARM microprocessors using RISC architecture generally have the following characteristics:

1. Small size, low power consumption, low cost and high performance;

2. Support Thumb (16-bit)/ARM (32-bit) dual instruction sets, and can be well compatible with 8-bit/16-bit devices;

3. Extensive use of registers, faster instruction execution speed;

4. Most data operations are done in registers;

5. The addressing method is flexible and simple, and the execution efficiency is high;

6. The instruction length is fixed;

3. ARM microprocessor series

ARM microprocessors currently include the following series, as well as processors based on the ARM architecture from other manufacturers. In addition to the common features of the ARM architecture, each series of ARM microprocessors has its own characteristics and application areas.

- ARM7 series

- ARM9 series

- ARM9E series

- ARM10E series

- SecurCore Series

- Xscale by Inter

- Inter's StrongARM

Among them, ARM7, ARM9, ARM9E and ARM10 are four general-purpose processor series, each of which provides a relatively unique set of performance to meet the needs of different application fields. The SecurCore series is specially designed for applications with high security requirements.