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StrongARM µarch
General Info
Arch Type	CPU
Designer	DEC, ARM Holdings
Manufacturer	DEC
Introduction	February 5, 1996
Process	0.35 µm
Core Configs	1
Pipeline
OoOE	No
Speculative	Yes
Reg Renaming	No
Stages	5
Decode	1-way
Instructions
ISA	ARMv4
Cache
L1I Cache	16 KiB/core 32-way set associative
L1D Cache	16 KiB/core 32-way set associative
Succession
XScale

StrongARM was a microarchitecture for DEC's series of ARM-based microprocessors branded under the same name. This microarchitecture was the result of a collaborative effort by DEC and ARM.

Overview

The StrongARM microarchitecture started as a collaborative project between ARM and DEC in the mid-1990s. The primary design goal was to develop a new class of high-performance low-power ARM-based processors. Earlier ARM architectures were simply insufficiently weak to power more advanced mobile devices such as PDAs and set-tops. Because of the new design goals, StrongARM implemented a number of new techniques not found in previous ARM architectures.

The historical significance of the StrongARM development cannot be overstated. StrongARM implemented the same ARM architecture as the ARM8 - ARMv4. The route ARM took to improve the ARM7 through the ARM8 was to widen the pipeline which allowed for double the speed at the cost of more die space for an identical process. ARM8 was consequently seldom licensed and has largely faded into obscurity. The StrongARM on the other hand resulted in performance increase of up to 5 times as much. StrongARM enjoyed a series of design wins such as Psion 7 Series, Apple's MessagePad 2000/2100, Yakumo Alpha PDA, and various PDAs from HP's Jornada line. After being sold to Intel in 1997, the architecture was enhanced and went on to dominate the PDA and light mobile market for close to a decade before being sold to Marvell just prior to the smartphone boom in 2006.

References

• Witek, Rich, and James Montanaro. "StrongARM: a high-performance ARM processor." Compcon'96. 'Technologies for the Information Superhighway' Digest of Papers. IEEE, 1996.