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Arm says that more than 250 billion Arm cores had shipped by April 2025, the 40th anniversary of the Arm architecture. That is Arm’s reported milestone—not an independently audited count—and it should not be confused with earlier Arm statements that more than 250 billion Arm-based chips had shipped.

What does Arm’s 250 billion figure count?

In an anniversary article dated April 24, 2025, the Arm Editorial Team said that more than 250 billion Arm cores had shipped by the architecture’s 40th anniversary. The figure is Arm’s statement about cores; the article does not publish a detailed methodology for counting them or an independent audit. Read it as a milestone reported by Arm as of April 2025, not as a live count for a later date. Arm’s 40th-anniversary article

A core is not the same unit as a chip

A processor core is a processing unit within a chip. A chip can contain one or more cores, so “250 billion cores” and “250 billion chips” are not interchangeable descriptions. Arm develops and licenses processor technology that partners use in chips; the milestone does not mean Arm manufactured every chip included in the count.

Why did Arm previously say 250 billion chips?

Arm’s earlier public milestones used the word “chips.” In September 2023, Arm CEO Rene Haas said more than 250 billion Arm-based chips had shipped to date. In a February 7, 2023 results release, Arm said its partners shipped 8.0 billion Arm-based chips in the reported quarter and that cumulative shipments had passed 250 billion. These are company statements about chip shipments, distinct from the anniversary article’s 2025 wording about cores; the sources do not explain whether or how the two totals map to one another.

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Statement Unit and timing Attribution
More than 250 billion had shipped Arm-based chips; stated in September 2023 Rene Haas, Arm CEO, Arm article
Partners shipped 8.0 billion in the quarter; cumulative shipments exceeded 250 billion Arm-based chips; February 2023 results release Arm, quarterly results release
More than 250 billion had shipped Arm cores; by the 40th anniversary in April 2025 Arm Editorial Team, anniversary article

Haas also stated in 2023 that Arm-based chips had powered more than 99 percent of the world’s smartphones for more than a decade. That is Arm’s attributed claim, with the time frame given in his article—not an independently established figure for the 2025 core total.

How has Arm technology changed since the first processor?

Arm’s anniversary account says the original ARM1 processor used 6,000 gates and had no cache. For contrast, it describes a modern Armv9 CPU as having 100 million gates, graphics acceleration and multicore capabilities. These are comparisons made by Arm in its anniversary article, rather than independently measured figures presented here.

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What does an Arm-based computer look like?

Raspberry Pi 5 offers a concrete example: Raspberry Pi’s September 2023 announcement specifies a 2.4GHz quad-core, 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU. It illustrates how an Arm-based processor can appear in a computer, but it is not evidence for the aggregate shipment figure and does not represent every Arm core. Raspberry Pi’s Raspberry Pi 5 announcement

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Waveshare Luckfox Lyra Plus RK3506G2 Linux Micro Development Board, Integrates Tripe-core ARM Cortex-A7 and ARM Cortex-M0 Processors, with Ethernet Port, Without Header
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