Intel CEO Talks About Competing with Arm

[Vermil]

[citation][nom]saturnus[/nom]I'm sorry Intel. This is one battle you're gonna lose. ARM is the most popular platform in the world for a very good reason and that's because ever since they were conceived in the early 80s as a competitor to the x86 platform they have beaten x86 based chip on cost due to minimal silicon real-estate and performance per watt. The platform is so popular that it's practically impossible to imagine a household without several ARM chips. Be it in the micro-oven, washer-dryer, or in mobile phones.[/citation]
Nope, it's neither silicon real-estate nor performance per Watt which have made ARM so popular. One reason is that it got a real foothold in the market, which was improved during the time Intel owned it. This made it a start of a standard. During this time most competition also elected to quit, so it's not like there were many choices around either. Why it's popular today is because it's open. Anybody can roll their own, in their own SOC, like Apple did, and now nVidia also do.

 

[Vermil]

Sorry, I meant it's licenced to anyone.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

The problem is with the x86 ISA.There is no way to compete with an RISC ISA like ARM in power consumption with the inefficient x86

 

[Milleman]

Intel could license ARM as well and manufature the chips with their latest technology. If other companies could make dollars on making ARM on license, sodo could Intel. Would be more profitable than putting costly R&D money on keeping an old architecture alive.

 

[spqrusa]

@kronos_cornelius - to your point on mobile_x86 versus desktop_x86. Resorting to desktop_x86 emulation on a mobile platform is only a stop-gap measure (but an absolutely necessary stop-gap measure). The goal is to move toward FATTER applications on the server-side (app-store) and downloading on the right target binary.

Whoever in this thread think that x86 is just fine for mobile, they have not understood the efforts (and Si area) that Intel devotes to decoding and supporting the long legacy of x86. An objective analysis between ARM and x86 ISA would show that much more energy (area) is devoted to decoding an x86 than an ARM. That's a non-started in the mobile space for a long time (until we get ultra-capacity batteries). Even when mobile devices are less power limited, there will be a strong motivation to keep the power-compute efficiency envelop very small.

 

[Vermil]

[citation][nom]spqrusa Whoever in this thread think that x86 is just fine for mobile, they have not understood the efforts (and Si area) that Intel devotes to decoding and supporting the long legacy of x86. An objective analysis between ARM and x86 ISA would show that much more energy (area) is devoted to decoding an x86 than an ARM. That's a non-started in the mobile space for a long time (until we get ultra-capacity batteries). Even when mobile devices are less power limited, there will be a strong motivation to keep the power-compute efficiency envelop very small.[/citation]
In fact very little area is devoted to support x86 legacy. So little, it's completely irrelevant. Area is devoted to decoding though. That is correct. But that is not to disadvantage for the x86 architecture,.. - When we consider higher levels of performance. In term of raw performance, Atom blows ARM clean out of the water. Those who somehow have acquired a different perception, do not understand how little various devices ask of the ARM, compared to a PC.
The situation today, is that Atom, as a processor is various multiples faster, depending upon tasks. That Atom also has the advantage on performance per SI area, and performance per $. ARM does have two advantages though. It has higher performance per Watt, somewhat. But the biggest advantage comes when we consider the total package. ARM is typically rolled into its own tailormade environment in a SOC. This is where ARM makes its huge gains, And Atom, sofar, starts to look disappointing, thanks to crappy, powerhungry chipsets. I would expect Intel to come up with ways to nullify this advantage though, i.e. more integration.
Rounding off, I would suggest that if we also consider power consumption from antennas, audio, LCD/LED displays, then the significance of ARM's performance per Watt is greatly reduced. Finally, as more and more is asked from mobile devices, x86 is going to be increasingly favored.
So the potential of Intel's position is good. It's just that I think a lot of players would rather use their own SOC with a licenced ARM, than just become another low-profit, competing manufacturer for Intel.

 

[Vermil]

Sorry, let me re-phrase one line: It (ARM) has higher performance per Watt. period. Forget that "somewhat", because the difference is in relative terms quite considerable. If it's so in significant terms remains to be seen.