The only real advantages ARM has over x86 currently is:
a: licensing cost / production cost
b: Power consumption
If you think that intel wont have both of those factors down to ARM levels shortly, you dont know intel very well. They are very competitive and dont like to get beat.
I disagree. Reason: I think the problem with Intel is that they are more of a manufacturing company than design company. What I hear from insiders (anyone at Intel care to validate/correct?) is that the company's culture as a whole value their design arm much less than their manufacturing. Their main advantage (also strategy) has always been that they can out manufacture their competition. (ie faster shrink, better yields) Intel does not have a good track record for processor design outside of the x86 CPU space. (and even in that space the P4 is pretty much a failure in terms of design) Looking at their repeated failed attempts at being significant in the graphics space. And then there is Xscale. They had a lot of potential with the StrongARM group when they acquired them from DEC, but they just ended up selling them to Marvell (who is now doing amazing stuff with them). Also how they are now capitalizing on their superior manufacturing capabilities by venturing into producing lower tech products like SSDs. Combine all of that with the notion that the x86 architecture simply does not offer any value on a mobile CPU, (another debate, but one I strongly believe) I really don't think Intel will have anything competitive against ARM "shortly". (Xscale was sold in 2006...)
Technology is not the issue here. Technology already can give us a quadcore x86 CPU in a smartphone - the question is just how much are you willing to pay for it.
As long as Intel can keep making chips 5x bigger and sell them for 20x the profit, they will. Consumer demand doesn't appear to be slowing for this; embedded CPUs are simply opening a new market for portable, low power devices with acceptable performance.
Embedded system-on-a-chip margins are very low, and thus the shipment volume of smart phone and tablet CPU shipments has to be very, VERY high before it can begin to bring Intel the sort of profit margins they already enjoy for x86 consumer parts.
Intel has been trying to reach ARM's power consumption for years. Not so easy with legacy chips. Anyway, if ARM gains a strong foothold in tablet computing and Chrome netbooks, for example, what's the motivation for switching to Intel in 3-4 years? Intel needs to be a lot better, not just competitive.
There are really two markets for processors: consumer electronics, and real computing. ARM may be the best processor (whatever that means, as it's a design you license, not a piece of hardware) for looking at ads on a 3" display, but I think Intel is still going to be relevant in the server market for a while. Think about some of Intel's key assets like being really fast and having a C++ compiler that makes C++ even faster. This is important because programmers write horrendous code that needs hardware assistance to produce answers in a reasonable amount of time. (There are also problems to solve that require a lot of CPU power, like protein folding and finding the next Mersenne prime. ARM processors are not used for this.)
Now, if you're saying, "yeah, but not for desktops", I can agree with you. Desktops are going to become less and less powerful as the average computer user becomes more and more computer illiterate ("the Facebook dumb terminal", I'll call it), and ARM may help keep the cost down. But I'm probably not going to be running Emacs on an ARM box anytime soon. (Hell, I even use x86 for my router.)
I take issue with the notion of Intel's model being obsolete in the mobile world. Quite the opposite; Intel's business model of treating CPUs as commodity is for market of mature technology, while current mobile model of heavily (and costly) customizing SoCs is one for technology being still insufficient for achieving market goals.
If anything, it's the current mobile model that will go obsolete at some point -- simply because it's costly, both in terms of customizing SoCs, taping out small batches of silicon and customizing software for it. Mobile will shift to commodity components at some point.
>Mobile will shift to commodity components at some point.
Selling tens of millions of a single hardware model doesn't count as commodity?
Even discounting that, ARM's business model doesn't preclude the emergence of 'commodity' ARM processors. Maybe such a shift might play to Intel's strengths, but then ARM has total domination of the mobile CPU market in their favour.
I have no idea where this market will go in say 10 year's time, but right here, right now ARM have a lot going for them and there are no short or medium term reasons to suspect that's likely to change.
Here's a prediction, Intel will still be a dominant player in CPUs 10 years from now. ARM is making progress, great, good luck competing with Intel in FAB capacity and engineering capability. The world isn't going to suddenly switch to 100% mobile CPUs, desktops and severs are still not just a big business but the biggest part of the business.
Most ARM CPUs are manufactured not by ARM itself but by Samsung, Qualcom, Texas Instruments and the like. These guys certainly do have all the requisite capacity as they provide the silicon for all of the world's mobile phones.
Granted, the Big Gorilla is faster to shrink the processes, because they have no problem dropping a few billions on a brand-new fab, but what good did that do? On both supposed benefits of the smaller process (cost and power drain / performance) ARM CPUs are still winning.
This whole situation is a replay of the Pentium 4 Megahurtz madness. Back then Intel was pushing raw performance disregarding power consumption, then they hit the heat dissipation wall, AMD snuck in from behind and punished them in a major way with Athlon-64. Intel regrouped with Core* series, won back the market share, pushed AMD back into oblivion, and relaxed about the whole thing. Now they are doing the same thing - prioritizing performance at the cost of power drain, and this time it will be ARM who will punish them. It's not clear how long it will take Intel to change their ways this time. The last time they still had Pentium 3 / Pentium M group of engineers to lean on, and that they did rather well. This time they are not so lucky - they have actually sold off their embedded CPU division a few years back, and now I doubt whether there is anyone left inside Intel to insist on a much needed pivot.
Another terrible asymco entrant. Interesting how the author pushes one philosophy for processors (the inevitable superiority of a licensed model) but if you've read their many pro-Apple screeds, exactly the opposite conclusion is pursued relative to Android.
It's worse than that. Asymco has this "modular"/"integrated" split, which they refer to in this post as well, though reversed from their usual position as you note, but they happily admit that Nokia and RIM are "integrated" but in trouble while downplaying HTC and Samsung's success (and Motorola's miraculous reversal) on the "modular" side. They leave these inconsistencies dangling as long as they can massage the data enough to conclude that Apple is great and so are the people who buy Apple products. It's blatantly pandering sophistry masquerading as overwrought analysis.
Supporting a given business model in one industry doesn't mean that you must support the same business models in all industries, regardless of the different market conditions, in order to be consistent. That would be blind fundamentalism, not analysis.
ARM's business model is well matched to their market (mobile phone designers). Apple is selling to a different market (mobile phone users) with different requirements and dynamics, and so a different business model is appropriate.
[+] [-] DanBlake|15 years ago|reply
a: licensing cost / production cost
b: Power consumption
If you think that intel wont have both of those factors down to ARM levels shortly, you dont know intel very well. They are very competitive and dont like to get beat.
[+] [-] ztan|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Andys|15 years ago|reply
Technology is not the issue here. Technology already can give us a quadcore x86 CPU in a smartphone - the question is just how much are you willing to pay for it.
As long as Intel can keep making chips 5x bigger and sell them for 20x the profit, they will. Consumer demand doesn't appear to be slowing for this; embedded CPUs are simply opening a new market for portable, low power devices with acceptable performance.
Embedded system-on-a-chip margins are very low, and thus the shipment volume of smart phone and tablet CPU shipments has to be very, VERY high before it can begin to bring Intel the sort of profit margins they already enjoy for x86 consumer parts.
[+] [-] melling|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DenisM|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|15 years ago|reply
Now, if you're saying, "yeah, but not for desktops", I can agree with you. Desktops are going to become less and less powerful as the average computer user becomes more and more computer illiterate ("the Facebook dumb terminal", I'll call it), and ARM may help keep the cost down. But I'm probably not going to be running Emacs on an ARM box anytime soon. (Hell, I even use x86 for my router.)
[+] [-] gnufs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PostOnce|15 years ago|reply
AMD P/E: 5.46
Intel P/E: 11.12
ARM P/E: 86.94
[+] [-] BvS|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dexen|15 years ago|reply
If anything, it's the current mobile model that will go obsolete at some point -- simply because it's costly, both in terms of customizing SoCs, taping out small batches of silicon and customizing software for it. Mobile will shift to commodity components at some point.
[+] [-] simonh|15 years ago|reply
Selling tens of millions of a single hardware model doesn't count as commodity?
Even discounting that, ARM's business model doesn't preclude the emergence of 'commodity' ARM processors. Maybe such a shift might play to Intel's strengths, but then ARM has total domination of the mobile CPU market in their favour.
I have no idea where this market will go in say 10 year's time, but right here, right now ARM have a lot going for them and there are no short or medium term reasons to suspect that's likely to change.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DenisM|15 years ago|reply
Most ARM CPUs are manufactured not by ARM itself but by Samsung, Qualcom, Texas Instruments and the like. These guys certainly do have all the requisite capacity as they provide the silicon for all of the world's mobile phones.
Granted, the Big Gorilla is faster to shrink the processes, because they have no problem dropping a few billions on a brand-new fab, but what good did that do? On both supposed benefits of the smaller process (cost and power drain / performance) ARM CPUs are still winning.
This whole situation is a replay of the Pentium 4 Megahurtz madness. Back then Intel was pushing raw performance disregarding power consumption, then they hit the heat dissipation wall, AMD snuck in from behind and punished them in a major way with Athlon-64. Intel regrouped with Core* series, won back the market share, pushed AMD back into oblivion, and relaxed about the whole thing. Now they are doing the same thing - prioritizing performance at the cost of power drain, and this time it will be ARM who will punish them. It's not clear how long it will take Intel to change their ways this time. The last time they still had Pentium 3 / Pentium M group of engineers to lean on, and that they did rather well. This time they are not so lucky - they have actually sold off their embedded CPU division a few years back, and now I doubt whether there is anyone left inside Intel to insist on a much needed pivot.
[EDITED for typos]
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thebootstrapper|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexandros|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ergo98|15 years ago|reply
Quite humorous really.
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonh|15 years ago|reply
ARM's business model is well matched to their market (mobile phone designers). Apple is selling to a different market (mobile phone users) with different requirements and dynamics, and so a different business model is appropriate.
[+] [-] Hagelin|15 years ago|reply