ARM the largest Microprocessor company
Posted on | January 12, 2012 | No Comments
ARM a UK company ships more microprocessors and controllers than any one else world wide. So where can I find one of their devices? First palce might be your pocket that contains your mobile phone. 99 percent of all mobile phones irrespective of manufacture world wide utilise an ARM microprocessor. Most of the tablet computers including Apples contain an ARM microprocessor. The total number of phones forecast to be manufactured for 2015 is a few million short of one billion, and tablets a tad shy of 400 million, whilst notebooks will reach the best part of 425 million. Many of these tablets and notebooks will be using an ARM processor.
How come these guys dont have huge manufacturing plants then? basically ARM provides a design that can be manufactured under licence and they sell the licence with a design optimised for a given manufacturing process and the licencee transfers this to their preferred fabrication plant. The key reason the ARM devices are choosen is the ultra low power they consume for a given clock speed together with a support ecosystem unrivalled by any other volume provider. Secondly ARM provides robust designs well documented and supported by a strong team helping licencees get their product into production in the most effective manner possible. Arm products are available as 16bit- 32 bit- 64 bit- and dual core devices.
Where are the NFC Apps
Posted on | November 24, 2011 | 2 Comments
Mobile Network Operators, learn to tap dance! If the MNOs fail to agree a clear operating environment for NFC with consumers and Payment entities then they will be left behind. Consumers will flock to the easiest to use platform not neccassarily the lowest price (See iTunes).
Its time to invest in the new technology before someone-else eats your lunch. In-fighting over termination fees and new spectrum allocations may be important but mobile payments and mobile consumer information and or marketing services are passing under the radar. Time to accelerate; after all the phones are here, NFC payments are here, how will new applications for consumer market be launched WIFI? Too much attention on ‘look at my device’ and not enough ‘heres an application that solves this problem or produces this consumer benefit’.
International Standards
Posted on | November 23, 2011 | No Comments
International Standards for Smart Cards, Radio Frequency Identification, Near Field Communication, Associated Standards of Security and Payments. NFC operates at the unlicensed frequency of 125khz, 13.56MHz and at 895mhz and 2.4 GHZ. Read more