What has changed so that chip makers have moved from x86 to arm?
In: Technology
There have been a steady increase in ARM chips around since about 2013. ARM chips are better then x86 chips in power consumption and production price but they have also been improving a lot in performance. The high end ARM designs are now much faster and more capable then the low end x86 designs. So all the devices that used processors like Atom and Celeron have almost all switched to ARM nowadays. And ARM based laptops and servers which first were introduced around 2013 are now competing with the likes of i5 based products. So we are seeing more and more of these as they have become more capable. But there is no big difference from year to year.
It’s not that sudden, arm has had a significant part of the CPU market for a while. Every smartphone and tablet and most proprietary processers like the tegra X1 in the switch, uses the arm architecture.
They’ve been slowly creeping into new products (notable apple products which is why people are talking so much) because they are far more power efficient than x86.
The downside is compatibility with x86 software is poor and total performance is less than x86 both of which are slowing being solved.
Chipmakers have not moved from x86 to ARM. x86 for the last 20 years have been Intel and AMD and they have not started to make ARM chips. Intel has had an ARM CPU line called XScale but it was sold back in 2006.
What you are thinking about is likey Apple. They will change from purchasing x86 CPU to have their own ARM chip that silicon foundries will make for them. Apple has never made a x86 CPU the have used one but never made one.
ARM have replaced other CPUs designed but it is not x86 but other users in an integrated system like cellphones or microcontrollers. This is CPU architecture that never was well known to the general public. This has never been makets where x86 was dominant.
One main difference between x86 and ARM is who has the right to them.
x86 is in practice controlled by Intel and AMD they are CPU manufacturer, the result in practice is that you can purchase CPUs from them or cooperate with them to make custom chips like the one the PS5 use.
ARM is designed by company Arm Holdings and ith have existed since 1985. They do not make any CPUs today but license out the design starting in 1994.
So if you designed a chipset for a cellphone that includes a CPU and a lot of another part that is needed you can license the ARM design and put is in your chip.
So lately anyone that is not Intel or AMD and likes to produce a CPU has to design one by themself or license one like ARM.
Making a high-performance and efficient CPU takes cost a lot of money and takes time and it is not just the CPU you need to have software that can compile a program for it, the operating system to run on it. ARM gives you a quick way to have a CPU and an enormous amount of software and operating system.
ARM has been dominant on for example smartphones and almost all of them ave used ARM CPUs
There are other differences like how ARM is in may way a newer design as the X86 date back to Intel 8086 from 1978. ARM used a newer idea with few and simple instructions, that and others.
The result is that ARM has an advantage over x86 for power efficiency. In raw performance, x86 CPU is better today. The design might have an advantage compared to ARM or it might not. x86 are faster today but it might be more because they are designed for a desktop computer that can use a lot of power and ARM has been designed for Cellphons where power efficiency in more important than raw power.
The result is except for desktop and laptop computer ARM is very common. The fact that the was not compatible with common desktop software and slower was a problem. Today for general consumer usage they are good enough for everything with the exception of games.
Apple has to make ARM chips themselves sone the iPhone 5 was introduced in 2013. They think now that they are good enough for the computer line. It will likely result in longer battery life but primarily more control and profit for Apple as the CPUs likely will cost less for the.
Apple has an advantage over PC computers as they make the operating system and only that make the computers. So they can decide to change the CPU. They have used 68000, Power PC today X86.
PC has the computers made by multiple manufacturers and the OS by Microsoft. They also have lots of companies that use PC often with old programs that is custom-made and necessary for the business. So backward compatibility is a lot more important for PC than Apple
There have been lots and lots of ARM processors around for years. You’ve just started hearing more about it because Apple decided a couple of years ago to start moving Macbooks to their own ARM-based design. As people migrate more x86 code to ARM, it will become even more ubiquitous.
ARM is a good, low power architecture. And anyone with enough money can make them. You don’t need a license from Intel, who usually won’t provide one. Process technology has progressed to the point that you can put a bunch of ARM cores on a chip and get pretty good performance with low power consumption. That makes them useful for a lot of applications.
Intel should be shitting their pants about now. AMD has very competitive processors, Apple is moving more stuff away, their attempts to break into the cellphone market are still failing, people are making ARM-based servers, and they’ve stumbled badly on process improvement.
If I was on Intel’s board I’d be raising bloody hell.
Latest Answers