ARM has been cooperating with Microsoft to develop processor architectures, according to president Philip Lu for ARM Taiwan at a March 22 press conference in Taipei.

Although Lu did not release further information due to business confidentiality, many Taiwan-based ODMs and OEMs hold a general opinion that ARM platforms developed through cooperation with Microsoft will focus on applications for smartphones, tablet PCs and other types of hand-held devices.

There were as many as 6.1 billion ARM-licensed chips shipped globally in 2010, hiking from 2009 by 55% which was much higher than the 30% industry average, Lu pointed out. Of the chips, 62% were used in mobile Internet-access devices, 19% in embedded devices, 14% in business-use equipment and 5% in home-use products, Lu indicated.

ARM has licensed its latest Cortex A15 patents to several chip designers/vendors including Samsung Electronics, Texas Instruments and ST-Ericsson, with products expected to be launched in late 2011 or early 2012, Lu said.

ARM has been developing architectures for new applications, including micro-controllers, sensors, SSDs, medium-sized mobile computing devices and large servers, and expects cumulative global shipments of ARM-architecture ICs to exceed 100 billion chips in 2020, Lu pointed out.