ARM smells Intel blood?

[Macist]

ARM is moving to powerful 64bit chips.

http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/a...-the-next-version-of-the-arm-architecture.php

This is on top of server-class ARM chips being developed.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/28/applied_micro_arm_x_gene_server_chip/

Apple could and should go ARM-only as soon as if viable. ARM is just slicker tech than x86 by miles. An all-ARM shop makes sense.

Intel could be the next Microsoft - the unassailable top dog suddenly finding itself toppled.

 

[roadbloc]

Competition drives innovation. The result? Consumer wins.

 

[KnightWRX]

ARM is a instruction set. Intel is a chip manufacturer.

Why would ARM smell Intel blood ?

Makes no sense, especially considering this :

If ARM produces a design that is 64 bit, capable of the same number of instructions per clock than Intel's stuff and also capable of similar clock speeds, with the same SIMD special instructions/registers, then Intel can simply produce those ARM chips instead of their x86-64 stuff they do know which is an AMD design...

Am I the only one not understanding this post by the OP ?

 

[Macist]

The StrongARM and Xscale were pre-Atom stabs at the mobile market.

Intel makes its $$$ from x86 and it would have to slog it out with a wide selection of competitors, all capable of top class chip manufacture, if it went ARM. How on earth could they maintain their position without x86?

ARM started out as a desktop chip and it was only the success in mobile that took the firm in that direction.

The moves beyond mobile are interesting and who else would they be targeting than Intel's market? They have mobile in the bag. Where else can they go but into higher power computing?

If ARM can produce desktop and server class designs, which would almost certainly have lower power requirements than Intel, and Apple can licence them it'd be a cool thing, no?

 

[KnightWRX]

which would almost certainly have lower power requirements than Intel

That remains to be seen. A lot of players tried and beat Intel at the efficient game. No one has really managed yet. The thing with processing power is that there is no magic to it.

And again, just like Intel's own 64 bit initiative was beaten by AMD's, Intel could simply turn around and produce ARM chips once again. Intel doesn't really make money off of x86. They make money off of manufacturing and selling chips.

ARM and Intel don't really compete with each other, nor does this move by ARM aim to compete with Intel (their "server" offering would target low power data center applications, not high power ones).

 

[elistan]

It very well could be that one day IBM, Dell and HP will license the ARMv8 architecture and fab their own chips for their servers, rather than sourcing them from Intel and AMD. Or maybe they'll license the architecture, design their own chips around it, and have Samsung fab them (like what Apple did for it's A5 chip.)

But being the state of patents and IP these days, however, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the technology ARM uses for the ARMv8 architecture and A64 instruction set had to be licensed from Intel and AMD (who have cross-licensing agreements and can therefore use eachothers stuff, fwiw.) (This is pure speculation, btw, I haven't found anything detailing the IP underpinnings of ARMv8.)

So it could be that even if all mobile, desktop and server chips become ARM based, Intel and AMD and Samsung and etc. will continue doing business just fine.

If there were to be a big shift to ARM based server computing, by the way, some of the major players, in addition to IBM et al. supplying the hardware, would have to be Microsoft and VMWare on the software end.

Magic 8-Ball says "Cannot predict now."

 

[smoledman]

I'm waiting for Intel's P&L to determine that.