Read the latest news from the 2008 Embedded Systems Conference, Silicon Valley

Read Can ARM's Cortex-M3 processor save the planet?

ARM's message at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in San Jose, California this week is low, low power.

Building on the success of its Cortex-M3 processor core, the Cambridge-based developer has added a new Wake-Up Interrupt (WIC) controller which allows what the company called an "almost instantaneous return to fully active mode from an ultra-low leakage retention state".

The Cortex-M3 processor is also supported by the ARM Power Management Kit (PMK) and is integrated with low power physical IP standard cell libraries and memories from the ARM Artisan physical IP family.

An early adoptor of the lower power Cortex-M3 processor is Energy Micro, the Oslo-based start-up. Which it will use in its EnergetIC microcontroller.

Energy Micro also licensed various physical IP from the ARM Artisan physical IP family, plus a number of ARM PrimeCell peripheral IP blocks.