ARM Reached From IoT to the Data Center at TechCon 2015

ARM wants to extend the reach of its silicon designs into new markets. At its TechCon 2015 show, the talk focused on subjects like servers, security and IoT.

ARM CTO Mike Muller, left, and CEO Simon Segars touted the company’s efforts in IoT, wearables and security, and also talked about servers and, yes, mobile devices.

One of the overarching themes throughout the event was ARM’s ambition to power all systems, from the smallest devices at the edge to the servers in the data center and cloud.

ARM officials see the company’s low-power chip designs as a natural fit for IoT and all the small devices that will demand high performance, battery life and energy efficiency. There were a range of smartwatches on display at the show, including Samsung’s Gear s2 (right).

Self-driving cars are coming, and they’re going to need a lot of intelligence. One thing they’ll have to do is be able to identify people in the road and react accordingly. Freescale was demonstrating a pedestrian detection system from Neusoft that is running on one of the chip maker’s ARM-based S32V234 processors.

Smart running shoes from Li-Ning are powered by an ARM-based DA 14580 microcontroller from Dialog Semiconductor.

Silicon Labs’ smart badges, which are powered by an ARM-based SoC and track the wearers’ presence, were on display at TechCon 2015.

Virtual reality is a fast-growing part of the tech industry, and one being targeted by ARM and its partners. Here is a Zeiss VR headset that is linked to a Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone, which is powered by Samsung’s eight-core Exynos 7 and features ARM’s big.Little architecture.

ARM and its partners also are targeting the server space, looking to chip away at Intel’s dominance in the space. Cavium, with its ThunderX SoC, had several systems and boards on display at the show.

Applied Micro CEO Paramesh Gopi introduced the next generation of the company’s server SoCs, saying it will challenge Intel’s Xeon E5 and E7 processors. It will begin sampling in the second half of 2016.

Startup SoftIron was at the show with its Overdrive 3000, an enterprise-class development platform powered by eight 64-bit ARM-based Opteron A1100 Series SoCs from Advanced Micro Devices.

While the IoT and data center may have been the focus of much of TechCon, ARM officials didn’t ignore its strength in mobile devices. The company unveiled the Cortex-A35 SoC, a 64-bit chip aimed at low-cost, entry-level smartphones. It also will be used in IoT devices.

Plenty of smartphones were on display, including Huawei’s P8 (right), which is powered by the Kirin 930 chip manufactured by its HiSilicon unit. Other smartphones at the show came from such vendors as LG Electronics, HTC and Meizu.

OEMs were demonstrating various laptops and other mobile computing devices that are powered by ARM-based chips. Those included Asus’ Chromebook Flip (left), a device that can be used in either PC or tablet mode and is powered by a RK3288 SoC by Rockchip, and Sony’s Xperia Z4 tablet, running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chip.

In what looked like the back of a tractor-trailer, Atmel had on display the ARM-based devices it powers, from smartphones to tablets to PCs.