Though ARM chips have mostly stuck to mobile handsets and small electronics so far, it seems like they might soon make it into none other than the server market, if Smooth-Stone manages to put its latest $48 million in funding to good use.

Intel and NVIDIA have been promoting their respective solutions for servers and HPC (high-performance) applications.

Both mostly focus on the high levels of performance achievable, and mention energy efficiency as a side-bonus.

Smooth-Stone, on the other hand, intends to perfect a chip technology that utilizes many low-power processors instead of a few high-power parts.

This approach will also demand less cooling power and, thus, an even higher energy efficiency over what Intel has in store, at least according to the company.

The list of investors that contributed to this investment includes ARM, ATIC, Battery Ventures, Hihgland Capital Partners and Flybridge Capital Partners.

“This kind of investment, the amount, and the strength of this syndicate is a strong endorsement for the innovation we are bringing to market,” said Smooth-Stone chief executive Barry Evans.

“We look forward to taking advantage of the insights and know-how of these industry-leading investors,” he added.

“Our goal is to completely remove power consumption as an issue for the data center. Imagine that change for companies with a large presence on the Internet,” Evans enforced.

“Smooth-Stone’s approach of bringing low power technology into the server domain made them a perfect fit for our investment model,” said Bruce Beckloff, vice president of corporate business development at ARM. “

“There is a strong market need for a new class of data center platforms that offer a significant improvement in performance from both the energy and density perspectives, and ARM is excited to support Smooth-Stone’s efforts to develop innovative chip solutions for this new class of platforms,” Beckloff finished.