Communications giant Lucent Technologies Inc has gone to Advanced RISC Machines Ltd for core ARM microprocessor technology to integrate with its application specific integrated circuit library, in a licensing deal of undisclosed value, but potentially high volume. Lucent, which says it is the world’s largest supplier of standard cell ASICs and the second largest supplier of digital signal processors, will incorporate the ARM RISC processor cores into a wide variety of system-level offerings, including digital cellular phones and high-speed modems, the first iterations of which should be out by year-end. It’s taking the 32-bit ARM7TDMI core, which includes Advanced RISC’s Thumb code compression technology, as part of its standard cell CMOS ASIC library. Lucent says it was attracted to the part by its very low power consumption. The ARM chip joins Intel Corp’s i960 and the Motorola Inc CPU32 in Lucent’s standard cell ASIC libraries.
