Throughout its 18 year history ARM has signed very few architectural licenses. These give the licensee the authority to develop thier own implementations of ARM cores and add custom extentions. Digital was an architectural licensee and used that license to develop the StrongARM processor.

Warren East, chief executive officer of ARM, commented during an analysts' conference: "Clearly an architectural license tends to be a fairly substantial engagement."

It is possible that the deal is a renewal of an existing architectural license that has come to a conclusion but it was clearly one reason why East was able to sound optimistic during the analysts' call last Thursday (July 24) despite modest financial results (see July 28 story).

With regard to the processor division East confessed that licensing revenue was down in Q2 both sequentially an quarter-on-quarter. But East also spoke of the record backlog, partly due to the signing of the architectural license and ARM's "opportunity pipeline" never having looked in better shape.

"Licensing revenue is lumpy. However, the pipeline is very strong for the second half," said East.

"During the quarter...we did sign an architectural license with a strategic OEM for both current and future technology and clearly this has been a contributory factor and helped us to a strong quarter for bookings; helped us increase the already record backlog and revenue on this contract will be recognized over several years because of the multiyear nature of the contract," said East.