Amid tablet boom, ARM revenue surges

ARM Holdings experienced huge growth in the fourth quarter of 2011 as its chip designs continued to play a major role in the ever-expanding tablet computer and smartphone markets.

The British chip and software designer's year-over-year revenue increased 21 percent during the quarter, reaching $217 million. For the entire year, ARM generated $785 million in revenue, good for 24 percent growth over 2010.

ARM's architecture is used in a wide variety of smartphone and tablet chipsets from the likes of NVIDIA®, Texas Instruments, mobile market leader Qualcomm® and others. With their low-powered designs, ARM-based chips are vital to the extended battery life that has become crucial to mobile devices.

“In Q4 and throughout 2011, ARM has seen strong licensing growth, driven by market-leading semiconductor companies increasing their commitment to ARM technology, and more new customers choosing ARM technology for the first time," says ARM CEO Warren East in a statement. "We have also seen our royalty revenue continue to grow faster than industry revenues as the ARM Partnership gains share in our target markets."

ARM is likely to see more competition in the mobile space in 2012, chiefly from industry titan Intel®. The world's biggest chipmaker has already unveiled a new chipset specifically designed for mobile technology and will likely release another in the latter half of the year.