ARM Holdings (ticker symbol ARMH) is a little known British chip architecture firm which has been riding the mobile wave for nearly two years. The architecture of ARM is found in almost every mobile phone and tablet, due its low power requirements. The company does not make chips itself, but licenses its architecture to other manufacturers such as Samsung, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm. 1.15 billion ARM processor-based chips are used in smartphones and tablets – including Apple’s(AAPL) iPhone and iPad, as well as other mobile devices.

They released their earnings announcements today for the first quarter of 2011 and, no surprise, beat analyst expectations for both revenue and earnings. Pretax profits stood at 50.8 million pounds ($83.7 million) in the first quarter of 2011, with revenues at 116 million pounds ($185.5 million)–a year ago, those figures were 37.6 million pounds and 92.3 million pounds, respectively. According to chief executive Warren East, the 35 percent profit rise coincided with a 33 percent increase in ARM-processor-based shipments “driven by growth in smartphones, tablets, digital TVs and microcontrollers.”

The stock has been in a strong uptrend for several months and is currently trading at $31.10, up slightly from yesterday’s close of $31.03 and near an all time high of $31.81.