UK company ARM has introduced an addition to its chip line which supports DSP and control software. The ARM 9E, said the company, is aimed applications that need a mix of control and digital signal processing (DSP). Typical applications include DVD drives, voice over IP, hard disks, mobile telephones, modems, PDAs, Internet appliances, MP3 digital audio decode, voice recognition and others. The process is rated at 220 MIPS at 200MHz using .18 micron technology. The chip is backward compatible with ARM 7 Thumb, ARM 9 Thumb, StrongARM and ARM10 Thumb. First samples will arrive in the second half of this year. ®