ARM9

ARM9 is a group of older 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Holdings.

Overview

With this design generation, ARM moved from a von Neumann architecture (Princeton architecture) to a Harvard architecture with separate instruction and data buses (and caches), significantly increasing its potential speed. Most silicon chips integrating these cores will package them as modified Harvard architecture chips, combining the two address buses on the other side of separated CPU caches and tightly coupled memories.

There are two subfamilies, implementing different ARM architecture versions.

Differences from ARM7 cores

Key improvements over ARM7 cores, enabled by spending more transistors, include: