Arm Introduces Virtual IoT Chip Models to Cut Development Time

In the semiconductor industry, the journey from chip design to silicon often spans years. Arm is addressing this bottleneck by offering cloud‑hosted virtual models of its chip architectures, enabling developers to write, test, and iterate on software long before the physical silicon arrives.

Dubbed Arm Total Solutions for IoT, the initiative is a full‑stack ecosystem aimed at Internet‑of‑Things use cases. Early access for developers, OEMs and service providers, coupled with reduced design cycles, promises to accelerate deployment timelines by up to two years.

Unlike Intel or AMD, Arm does not manufacture silicon. Instead, it licenses its proven designs to more than 800 OEM partners who then embed their own intellectual property to differentiate their products. This added layer of customization can extend the overall development timeline.

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The backbone of the service is Arm Cornerstone, a lightweight subsystem that serves as the foundation for application development. Arm’s cloud‑based offering, Arm Virtual Hardware, delivers a virtual representation of the Cornerstone subsystem, allowing software teams to prototype and validate code without the need for physical boards.

“By consolidating the typical IoT product development lifecycle from five years down to three, Total Solutions for IoT empowers engineers to move faster and more confidently,” said Mohamed Awad, Vice President of the IoT and Embedded Business at Arm, during a recent conference call.

Arm Virtual Hardware is available through the AWS Marketplace and leverages Agile methodologies—including continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), DevOps and MLOps—to streamline cloud‑centric development for IoT platforms.

“We’re tailoring the technology for modern cloud development, putting it into the hands of millions of developers who previously had limited or no access,” Awad added.

Amazon has already utilized Arm Virtual Hardware to test Alexa features, removing physical hardware dependencies and enabling faster updates across more than 150 Alexa‑enabled devices.

Project Centauri: Standardized Reference Designs

Complementing the virtual hardware, Arm has launched Project Centauri, which offers device and platform standards along with reference implementations for device boot, security, and cloud integration, specifically for the Cortex‑M SoC line.

For the high‑performance Cortex‑A processors, Arm has introduced Project Cassini, providing similar reference designs to support server‑grade and AI workloads.

Project Centauri’s APIs support PSA Certified and Open‑CMSIS‑CDI—open standards for cloud‑to‑device communication—ensuring seamless interoperability across diverse cloud ecosystems.

With these initiatives, Arm is positioning itself as a key enabler of rapid, secure, and scalable IoT solutions.