Chip designer ARM's profits double

British chip designer ARM reported Wednesday that its third-quarter profits doubled from year-ago levels, reflecting the shipment of more than 100 million chips using its microprocessor core.

ARM, which licenses its processor design to chipmakers, said it earned a pretax profit of $12.76 million (8.8 million pounds) on sales of $38.27 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30. In the same period last year, pretax profit was $6.38 million on sales of $22.76 million.

"Revenue growth for the third quarter was stronger than expected, with higher royalty revenues accounting for most of the increase," ARM financial chief Jonathan Brooks said in a statement. "As expected, operating margins declined to around 30 percent in the third quarter, a couple of points lower than in the first half of the year. The outlook for the rest of the year remains strong."

ARM-based chips are used for cell phones, handheld computers and other low-power devices.

In related news, ARM unveiled on Wednesday new instructions for its core that allow ARM-based chips to directly run Java programs.

The company shuffled several executives, naming Jamie Urquhart as chief strategy officer and Warren East as chief operating officer. Both will report to Robin Saxby, ARM's CEO. Pete Magowan was named as executive vice president of sales and marketing and will report to Urquhart.