Hi and welcome to another in the Arm “What Is” program series.
In each episode, we dive into a tech topic
to give you insight and perspective into some of today’s hottest design trends. I’m Brian Fuller,
editor-in-chief at Arm and today we’re going to find out what is an Arm-based laptop.
And to help us with that, I want to introduce Daniel Matte, Manager, Large Screen Compute
Strategy Team at Arm. When he’s not helping us understand what Arm-based laptops are,
Daniel enjoys playing guitar in a band with friends.
Let’s dive right in!
Daniel, what exactly is an Arm-based laptop?
An Arm-based laptop is a computer that has an Arm processor at its heart. This can be
an Arm CPU, GPU, or NPU, or all of the above. An Arm Cortex CPU or a central
processing unit is an application processor. Arm CPUs are really the core unit of compute
that powers most of the software in our lives from tiny, embedded devices with environmental sensors,
all the way up to the largest data centers and supercomputers, for high-performance computing
and scientific research. An Arm Mali GPU is a graphics processing unit, which provides powerful
and efficient graphics rendering. And an Arm Ethos NPU is a neuroprocessing unit, which is a chip
that accelerates machine learning calculations for AI software features. Essentially, all together an
Arm computer is a computer that has an efficient, powerful, and secure architecture by design.
Fascinating!
How does an Arm-based laptop with all that technology in it differ from other laptops?
Arm laptops effectively provides a more modern hardware and software platform. Some of the areas
that really matters include energy efficiency, performance scalability, and of course security.
Your device can have much greater battery life, come in much thinner form factor, and provide
much stronger protections for your data. And all of this is enabled by the Arm architecture,
which was designed to improve upon many of the mistakes and lessons learned from older
traditional architectures. And if you ask many people with a computer engineering background,
they’ll tell you that Arm is the best designed architecture available in the market.
Is the idea to replicate the trusted mobile experience on a laptop?
Yes, absolutely that’s a big part of it.
Today, our smartphones provide far greater security and protection of our data than x86
laptops. They start up instantly and they have much longer battery life.
Think about how much better the camera on your smartphone is than in your old laptop
or how much longer you can watch a video on your mobile devices. And you have a sense of
some of the many benefits on platforms can bring to improving your experience.
Very cool!
What’s the latest with Arm laptops in terms of adoption out in the marketplace?
Well, we have recently seen some incredibly, exciting momentum behind the PC industry
beginning to really transition from older architectures to Arm to rave reviews from both the
press and consumers. And that momentum is really just getting started. As we have some exciting,
new chips and technologies coming into market in the future from our partners that will provide
and even more compelling case for PC makers to provide Arm technology to users everywhere.
Well thanks Daniel! In just a few minutes you’ve educated us on a really fascinating topic.
Check out all our other “What Is” episodes here and be sure to subscribe to this channel
because we’ll be adding more as the year progresses. Thanks for listening!