ARM Holdings Plc, the UK-based RISC chip designer, has established a foothold in a new camp with the formation of an ARM consortium for Windows CE. Initial members are Cirrus Logic, Intel LG Semicon Co Ltd and Texas Instruments Inc though more members will be announced soon. Whatever the result of the coming battles between CE and rival systems, ARM will benefit. Members of the Symbian consortium – Psion Plc, LM Ericsson Telefon AB, Nokia Oy and Motorola Inc – are likely to run the rival EPOC operating systems on ARM processors for their mobile information devices. Arm’s CE consortium has broader ambitions that cover applications in the portable, multimedia, automotive and vertical embedded markets. The idea of the consortium is to enable members to work together to develop CE applications and increase the number of products that will be brought to market. ARM has been working closely with Microsoft for some time to develop a range of processors to run CE.
