INTEL LOSING BATTLE
TO ARM
Things changes as the generation passes-by, newer
model/technology replaces the old ones, but some things continue to adapt the
changes and survives, today we are looking at question that wheather intel
continues to outperfom or fades away with time??
Technology is upgrading and with that devices are becoming
smaller, people prefer to carry there handhelds (mobiles,tablet,phablets) etc
instead of their laptops,today a smartphone will do all of the basic stuff that
people generally used to on their desktop or laptops, this has open a big
market for the mobile processor companies, they are developing new technologies
for mobile processor with ultra low power consumption, less size and high
performance. As for now ARM is the leading developer of mobile proessor
architecture, 9 out of 10 mobile devices(mobiles,tablets,phablets) sold have
ARM processors, ARM has been making mobile processors from over two decade, it
has expertise itself in low power processor technology.Intel has launched
certain 32 bit atom processors for competing with ARM but is has not been as
efficient as ARM,though intel is working on a new 22nm low power tri-gate chip
but it wont be out until 2014,hope that do some good for intel.You must be
wondering that intel has such an impressive line-up of processors then why it
is not able to compete with ARM, the reason is that intel has got excellent
cpu's for desktop/laptop but here we are talking about the mobile cpu's with
extremely low power consuption which can run efficiently on a low power battery
without compromising the performance,intel is a way behind than ARM in this
category.This is scenario for mobile devices.
Now coming to high power category, steppping into servers market , ARM has also
launched its arhitecture for 64-bit(cortex A-50 series) processors (now a days almost all high end computers
use 64-bit processors and mobile devices use 32 bit procesors).Now the need for
the 64-bit processor designs is ram, in 32 bit designs you can only use upto
4gb of ram,but in 64-bit processsors you can use upto 128gb.Many companies like
AMD,Texas instruments,Dell,Calxeda have also announced servers based on arm
64bit architecture,this is a big blow for the intel,the reason that so many
companies are going for these arm-processor based servers is that it has a very
high "Comparable Performance Per Watt" ratio. Software vendors have
also started to develop operating systems for ARM architecture like Microsoft has also launched a less featured
model of windows 8 i.e. windows RT, which is compitable with ARM
architecture(unlike the regular windows
which runs on intel x86/64 processor architecture), so that tablets with ARM
chips will be able to support windows
8.Not only microsoft,rumurs are that apple is considering a shift from intel to
ARM cpu's(just like back in 2004when it moved from power pc to intel) for its
macbook series in future, if they choose to make this shift in future they need
to alter there operating system(os x) to make it compitable with arm cpu, the
thing is that every cpu architecture has a defined instruction set like intel
has x86/64 ARM has its own differnet architecture ,so the software is written
according to this instruction set, if an operating system has been made to run
on intel x86 machine then it cannot on be run on ARM based machine.These
companies(apple,microsoft) are shifting there primary vendor for processors
because of the inability of intel to compete with ARM processors in mobile
devices and low power consumption.Though intel is working on its 3d tri gate
transistor fabrication technology to build it\s mobile processor but only time
will tell that if intel has got guts to save itself from losing the battle to
ARM. Looking at these things we can say that may be tommorow ARM may stand
where intel is today.
