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ARM sees 16 percent profit increase in Q4 2012, 21 percent increase in royalty payments
UK-based chipmaker ARM had yet another profitable quarter, announcing that the end of 2012 saw pre-tax profits of around $126 million -- an increase of 16 percent since the same period last year. Revenue totaled $262.8 million for Q4 and with a huge proportion of Android and iOS devices containing chip know-how from ARM, it continues to benefit from the smartphone boom. In fact, shipments of chips based on its processors totaled 2.5 billion in Q4 alone, while royalty revenue grew 21 percent year-on-year, thanks to successes with both its Cortex-A and Mali silicon series. ARM chief exec Warren East added that the company is "well positioned" to have a great 2013, too -- unless everyone stops buying phones all of a sudden.
ARM planning three new Cortex CPUs, Eagle headed for smartphones
As if the Cortex-A9 isn't stirring up enough emotion all by itself, ARM revealed the roadmap for an even faster iteration of its Cortex-A series of chips during its earnings call a few days ago. Codenamed Eagle, the new processor is slated for a production run of 3 billion units annually, but alas this slide shares no more information on it beyond the intended market of smartphones, mobile computing, and digital TV products. (We've definitely heard that it'll be a 28nm multi-core part destined to ship around 2012, however.) There's also word of a pair of embedded chips, dubbed Heron and Merlin, which will find roles to perform in automotive and audio processing environments. Unsurprising that ARM isn't standing still, but we could've done with a little less mystery and a few more specs. [Thanks, Kamal]
