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Research Articles Sparking potential for community development: Arm Education Kits now available on GitHub
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Sparking potential for community development: Arm Education Kits now available on GitHub

Dipesh Patel
Dipesh Patel
January 24, 2022
6 minute read time.

The semiconductor industry has seen incredible advances in technology since the first integrated circuit was conceived. The pace of change has shown no signs of slowing over the passing decades. To ensure we continue to see this incredible momentum, the education and training of the next generations of engineers is key. We need to ensure that learners have the right skills, and that developers can continuously reskill and upskill in the face of new challenges. Some of these challenges we are not yet able to even predict.  

Arm has had a long-standing commitment to improving the quality of computing and engineering education in the Arm University Program, as well as STEM education more broadly through our School Program. Today, we are pleased to announce that we are now making it easier than ever to access our high-quality materials, based on commercially relevant technologies, to advance education for all.  

What are Arm Education Kits?  

The Arm University Program has developed Arm Education Kits in collaboration with industry and academia. They are self-contained teaching and learning packages which include everything you need to set up and teach core undergraduate courses in Computer Engineering and Informatics, using state-of-the-art technologies from the Arm ecosystem. Typically, an Arm Education Kit consists of: 

  • Complete teaching materials:  
    • Lecture slides with notes, typically for a 10 to 14-week term course 
    • Hands-on lab manuals with solutions, typically targeted at a low-cost, low-power, and high-performance Arm-based boards 
    • Demonstrator project code 
  • Professional software licenses for Arm-based application development, Keil MDK, or Arm Development Studio 
  • When available from Arm silicon and OEM partners, free hardware boards donated to equip the course lab

How do I access these kits? 

Previously, institutions would need to go through a course lead request and subsequent qualification process to access these free materials. Today, we are excited to announce that these materials are still free, but are now even easier to access, as they are available to anyone on GitHub for educational non-commercial purposes.  

Anyone can now download, clone, or fork these materials to create their own versions for educational use. We also encourage Arm partners to adapt the materials to their own Arm-based platforms and augment them with their own specific offerings. 

Why GitHub? 

Over the years, we have received feedback that the access process could be made quicker and simpler. Many academic partners are interested in customizing the materials to suit their teaching environment. They also would like to share these materials to the benefit of other users.  

We are highly supportive of community development, and hope that this will benefit educators and learners globally, as well as accelerate the benefits to the wider Arm ecosystem community. More widely, we aim to plug the education and skills gap in computer engineering and informatics for all. 


“This is a major development in the journey of the Arm University Program as it now opens its full set of education kits materials to community development and maintenance. Together with our ecosystem partners, academia and the wider computing community, we will be enabling even more educators, students, and developers at large, to access and harness state-of-the-art content, tools and technologies from the largest computing ecosystem in the world. This will accelerate the pace of learning and innovation, which in turn will help develop new exciting products and solutions that revolutionize ordinary people’s lives globally.”   

Dr. Khaled Benkrid, Senior Director of Education and Research, Arm Ltd 


Empowering the ecosystem 

Currently, more than 10,000 classes at over 2000 universities worldwide are using Arm-based technologies in their teaching. We are sure that this new initiative benefits this community and will help it grow even further.

As well as making resources easier to access, the move to GitHub also opens up opportunities for wider community development and maintenance. Examples of these could be: 

  • Porting teaching and learning materials to multiple software and hardware platforms 
  • Expanding the scope of the materials to cover existing and future demand from the community  
  • Translation of resources into languages other than English 

“Opening these courses up to the community is a model I wholly support. It is an opportunity for industry and academia (including students) to work together to shape and evolve these courses in the interest of current and future students. It is industry that knows its products and the technology best. Equally, it is those actively delivering the teaching and learning to groups of students who have most insight into the logistical complexities of delivering courses, as well as the educational needs of students. Working together therefore makes complete sense to me.” 

Dr. Nicholas Outram, Assoc. Prof. in Computing and Electronics, School of Engineering, Computing, and Mathematics at the University of Plymouth (UK) 


The Arm University Program continues to develop and maintain materials in its GitHub branch in collaboration with the wider community. We will be listening to suggestions and requests from the community, and will issue calls for contributions to cover specific gaps. 

Why choose Arm materials? 

Arm Education Kits cover fundamental computer engineering and informatics subjects with state-of-the-art Arm and partner technologies. Learners gain familiarity with industry standard tools and technologies that inspire them and equip them for the professional world. They will be upskilled with foundational and up-to-date knowledge for computing and informatics technologies, helping to prepare them for future challenges.  


We used several courses for undergraduate and graduate teaching, and we integrated the Arm Keil tools with our remote lab – this allowed the students to design, program, and test embedded systems. The lab is operational 24/7 and the availability of the Keil tools helped the students to get the same level of experiential learning as they would have got if they were on campus. The students were also using the tools in their projects they could work from home by connecting to the server. Even PhD students who required the tools could complete their work on time due to their availability. 

Prof.K.R.Anupama, Professor, Electrical Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering and Associate Dean, Work Integrated Learning Program Division, BITS, Pilani - KK Birla Goa Campus 


For the past decade, Arm has been working closely with academia and ecosystem partners to understand their respective needs. We are in a unique position to be able to support teaching of the knowledge and skills required in computer engineering and informatics.  

This has resulted in the development of kits and tools to support a wide range of core subjects: 

  • Embedded Systems Design and Programming (Rapid, Efficient) 
  • Digital Signal Processing 
  • Real-time Operating Systems 
  • Embedded Linux 
  • Internet of Things 
  • System on Chip (SoC) Design (Intro, Advanced) 
  • Robotic Systems 
  • Computer Architecture
  • VLSI Fundamentals 
  • Graphics and Mobile Gaming

 “Cadence is aligned with the Arm University Program to provide advanced academic materials to inspire the next generation of innovators. To help meet this goal, Cadence has collaborated with the Arm University Program on the development of an updated VLSI Fundamentals Education Kit. This kit has been ported to support a seamless Cadence RTL-to-GDS digital flow. Combining Arm technology with Cadence’s market leading commercial solutions enables students worldwide to gain practical, hands-on experience that equips them to enter the semiconductor industry and quickly contribute.” 

Yoon Kim, Vice President, Business Development and Operations at Cadence 


Find out more 

We are excited to see how the community uses and shares these materials, and we are sure that empowering educators with open development will benefit the future of our industry and the Arm ecosystem. We hope that this paves the way for current and future engineers to innovate to build the necessary energy-efficient high-performance intelligent systems for our increasingly digital, interconnected, and intelligent world. 

Access Education Kits on GitHub     Explore Arm Education    Contact Us

Anonymous
  • Nic Castaldo
    Offline Nic Castaldo over 1 year ago

    Great Blog, and lets take it to another level in 2022 and beyond. 

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