The Everything Blueprint - Arm Everywhere

James Ashton's history of Arm is detailed, readable and entertaining.

If you’re writing a book on the history of semiconductors then you probably need a ‘lens’ to look through: a way of looking at the industry from a particular angle to try to bring things into focus. When Chris Miller wrote ‘Chip Wars’ that lens was geopolitics and the looming battle between the US and China. In the case of James Ashton’s new book ‘The Everything Blueprint. The Microchip Design that Changed the World’ that lens is the history of Arm.

These different approaches each bring their own strengths and weaknesses. ‘The Everything Blueprint’ is an extremely engaging read. The focus on the story of a single company gives the book a sense of narrative in the way that a good biography should do. You really do want to turn the page to find out what happens next to the subject of the story.

Readers of The Chip Letter will probably familiar with the early story of Arm. The Everything Blueprint covers the same ground, over the years leading up to Arm’s flotation, that we have already in The Arm Story Parts 1, 2 and 3 and - being a 464 page book - often has the room to include more detail than is possible in a series of Substack posts.

I have a confession to make at this point. Before starting The Chip Letter my first idea was to write a history of Arm. I eventually convinced myself that the topic was too ‘niche’ and that no-one would publish it. I was wrong!

The Everything Blueprint also brings the story right up to date. There is the battle with Intel as the US company tries, and fails, to get its own designs into smartphones, the takeover of Arm by Softbank in 2016, the subsequent failed purchase attempt by Nvidia, and the looming threat from the ‘open’ RISC-V architecture.

The chapter on RISC-V is particularly interesting. It’s ironic that Krste Asanović, one of the leaders of the RISC-V project, was an undergraduate in Cambridge in the UK at the same time that, elsewhere in the city, the first Arm chip was brought to life. RISC-V firm SiFive’s opening a research and development centre in Cambridge and their sponsorship of local soccer club Cambridge United also brings a sense that, as Ashton puts it, the newcomer ‘drove its tanks further onto Arm’s lawn’.

If you’re hoping for major revelations about recent events at Arm though, then you’re likely to be a little disappointed. The relationship between Masatoshi Son and Arm’s senior team comes across as relatively harmonious. Maybe it is, but there are clearly underlying tensions between Son’s ideas - particularly his push into the ‘Internet of Things’ - and the prior ambitions of Arm’s management, and the book largely shies away from these.

The Everything Blueprint does cover the wider chip industry, but inevitably in less detail and with less cohesion than Chip Wars. There is just enough to read The Everything Blueprint as a stand alone book and make sense of Arm’s position in the world. The Everything Blueprint also comes up short compared to Chip Wars in helping readers understand why these chips are so important.

It’s unfortunate for Ashton that The Everything Blueprint comes so soon after Chip Wars. It’s also fortunate for Miller that his book better captures the spirit of the times. Geopolitical rivalry between the US and China is simply a bigger and more pressing concern than the future of a single firm.

But both books bring something unique and are both worthwhile and enjoyable reads. Anyone with more than a passing interest in semiconductors should read both.

Amazon (non-affiliate) link here.

This week’s paid subscriber post is a long read on one recent aspect of the Arm story : ‘Arm at Amazon’. It will be emailed to paying subscribers on Tuesday. Free subscribers can upgrade their subscription using the button below.

You can read my earlier review of ‘Chip Wars’ at the link below.

If you want to know even more about the history of Arm then I also recommend ‘Culture Won’ by Keith Clarke, which better explains how Arm achieved its success than The Everything Blueprint. Culture Won is also highly recommended.

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