ARM'S reach

摘要

Readers of a certain age will have fond memories of the BBC Micro. Purchased in bulk by UK schools in the 1980s from Acorn, it gave many their first taste of computing and set plenty of programmers on their career path. Many credit this machine for the UK's enviable software industry.rnOne of the main architects of the BBC Micro, Stephen Furber went on to develop the ARM microprocessor - the first commercial chip based on the principles of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC). Now, the ARM processor is at the heart of virtually every example of mobile computing. Over the past 25 years, almost 20 billion ARM chips have been produced; they operate 98 per cent of mobile phones and over a quarter of electronic devices.rnFurber, who was nominated for the 2010 Millennium Prize, had an unconventional path to the computer industry.