ARM has today announced details of their new ARMv8 architecture. The key change from previous ARM systems is the inclusion of a new 64-bit instruction set, named AArch64, with the existing instruction set continuing on under the AArch32 name. Full details on the instruction sets is expected to be announced in 2012, with processors available publically in 2014.

For more details, see here.

ARM have announced their new Cortex-A7 MPCore processor. This is touted to provide 5 times the energy-efficiency of the Cortex-A8, while consuming one fifth the size. Just as the previous Cortex-M3 series has been effective at moving designers on from the exceptionally popular ARM7TDMI cores, the Cortex-A7 is targeted at the still popular ARM9 family. Using 28nm process technology, the Cortex-A7 occupies a mere 0.5mm² of realestate.

In addition to this, ARM have announced the 'Big.LITTLE' feature - a multi-core processor with different speed/functionality cores. This allows tasks to be migrated from a low-power core to a high power core on demand, giving a more optimal mix of performance versus power consumption.

For more details, see here.

Altera have announced a new integrated ARM Cortex-A9 multi-core CPU, with either a Cyclone V or Arria V FPGA. This combined package provides a range of peripherals attached to the Cortex-A9 CPU: 2 x Gbps Ethernet, DDR3 memory support, external memory controllers with DMA support (NAND, SPI, SDIO), along with a 128bit high speed interconnect to the FPGA core.

Volume pricing was targeted to start at $15, with the silicon available in the second half of 2012.

For further details, see here.

Laurence Bryan, Directory of 'Mobile Segment Marketing' at ARM has given an interview on how ARM is performing in the smart phone and mobile markets. It contains interesting details on their pricing model, and their future plans.

For further details, see .

Atmel have announced a new RF IDIC chip, the ATA5577M1. This 100-150kHZ RFID device is a tiny 2mm x 1.5mm x 0.37mm, using the XDFN package. As the package has an internal 330pF capacitor, it requirs only an external antenna coil to form a complete LF-RFID tag.

This device is available for sampling now, with pricing starting at $0.38USD for 20k quantities.

For further details, see here.