Arm Holdings is a Cambridge, England-based semiconductor and software design company that has quietly become the backbone of the mobile computing world. Founded in 1990 as “Advanced RISC Machines,” Arm began as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology investopedia.com. Unlike traditional chipmakers, Arm doesn’t build chips itself. Instead, it licenses its processor designs and instruction set architectures to other companies, who then incorporate Arm’s intellectual property into their own chips. This model turned Arm into a ubiquitous force in tech: its designs are found in virtually all smartphones, tablets, and many other devices globally, thanks to their power-efficient performance reuters.com. Major firms like Apple have built their flagship chips on Arm’s architecture, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon system-on-chips that run most Android phones are also Arm-based.