British microchip designer ARM has signed a new deal to extend its licensing agreement for its architecture with Microsoft. The original deal dates back to 1997 and since that time the two companies have collaborated on design and development projects for the embedded, consumer and mobile technology markets.

More than 1 billion chips based on ARM designs were shipped last year, beating Intel's figure for design licensing at the same level. Headquartered in Cambridge, England, ARM also has U.S. offices in nine locations including Austin, Detroit, San Diego and Seattle.

The company licenses its processor designs through a flexible licensing model, which can encompass the complete ARM architecture or be restricted to specific processor implementations.

"ARM is an important partner for Microsoft and we deliver multiple operating systems on the company's architecture, most notably Windows Embedded and Windows Phone," said KD Hallman, general manager, Microsoft. "With closer access to the ARM technology we will be able to enhance our research and development activities for ARM-based products."

Precise details of ARM's agreement with Microsoft will remain confidential, for additional analysis see, Microsoft licenses ARM tech in bid to own 'internet' of things.