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ARM

Hardware

ARM (originally Acorn RISC Machine, now Advanced RISC Machines) is a family of CPU architectures based on RISC design principles. ARM processors power virtually all smartphones and tablets, and are increasingly used in laptops (Apple's M-series chips) and servers (AWS Graviton). ARM Holdings designs the architecture and licenses it to manufacturers like Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, and others who build the actual chips.

Why it matters

ARM's dominance in mobile devices means you likely interact with ARM processors every day through your phone. Apple's transition from Intel (x86-64) to ARM (M1, M2, M3, M4 chips) in Macs has brought ARM to mainstream computing, offering exceptional performance per watt. The lesson CPU Architectures: x86, ARM, and RISC explains why this architecture shift matters for software compatibility and what to expect when downloading apps.

Power efficiency

ARM's RISC design enables excellent power efficiency, which is why it dominates battery-powered devices. The simpler instruction set allows for smaller, cooler-running chips that sip power rather than guzzle it. Apple's M-series chips demonstrate that ARM can also deliver top-tier performance, competing with and often exceeding Intel and AMD chips while using far less energy. This efficiency also makes ARM attractive for cloud servers, where power costs are significant—AWS Graviton instances often cost less than x86-64 equivalents.

Software compatibility

Software compiled for x86 won't run natively on ARM, and vice versa. When Apple switched to ARM, they introduced Rosetta 2, a translation layer that runs x86-64 apps on ARM Macs with some performance overhead. When downloading software for an ARM device, look for labels like "arm64," "aarch64," or "Apple Silicon." Most major applications now offer native ARM versions, but compatibility can still be an issue for specialized software.

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Further reading

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