The time is ripe and a momentous shift on horizon… who will win the war for future: The mighty Intel or the nimble ARM?
Or will it be the dark horse called AMD (Bobcat) or Nvidia (Tegra) because they do the GPU?
Let’s see what TE thinks… Who and WHY?
Very interesting you bought this up. Me and a few others at the Mumbai meet ourselves had this conversation.
With the whole shift to mobile computing, SoC is the new wave that will push the mobile gen ahead. Having said that, the Nvidia Tegra definitely has the lead here having some sucess where others have none. Not too sure about the AMD Bobcat, will have to read up on that 
^^ AMD claims that Bobcat is something that will launch them in mobile space in a big way. AMD believes that by combining its expertise in GPU and CPU, it will be able to build an APU that will be extremely power efficient and powerful because it will have hardware that tackle GPU/CPU intensive tasks in specific ways.
From Anandtech
AnandTech: AMD Unveils Bulldozer & Bobcat: 2011 Microachitectures
Bobcat is interesting on paper, but so far everyone has failed to beat ARM in terms of performance-per-watt. ARM has something both AMD and Intel lack at this moment, a huge headstart and ton of experience in mobile space.
nVidia’s tegra is interesting, but don’t forget that despite the moniker of high-end GPU makers in desktop space, nVidia faces a tough competition from PowerVR graphic in mobile arena. This market unlike desktop doesn’t run on pure performance numbers, if your performance has inverse effect on battery life, it counts for nothing. Unless a company can find a fine balance between performance and power-usage, it has slim to no chance of success.
Ideally, I think the first couple of generations from both nVidia, AMD and even Intel in this space is going to okay-ish affairs. Intel has even harder path to walk, since it’s trying to push mobile space into X86 realm, without highly competitive part to beat or match ARM’s offering and neither it has competent graphic solution. Same goes for AMD but at least they have their graphic part worked out.
nVidia seem like the only strong contender from this lot, with established platform like ARM for it’s CPU cores and it’s expertise in graphics. But then again, there are also other players, albeit lower profile compared to nVidia. Samsung has good experience of building SoCs around ARM processors, as well there is new entry from Apple (A4 chip). Although it’s unclear if Apple has any interest in seeling A4 in open market, the thing to note here is that both Samsung and Apple has design and effectively used PowerVR graphic cores to it’s potential.
Ultimately, Intel vs. ARM argument is pointless, at least today. Unless, Intel can match ARM in terms of Performance-per-watt and price, it’s going to be uphill battle trying to take down ARM. If only Intel could do that, the push to X86 will be interesting turn of page in mobile arena.
@SherkhaN: The moment I read the first post, our conversation from the last evening ran through my mind.
Given the fact that Apple is not making any major changes in how it runs its business, it can be assumed that the A4 will purely be a “Mac Hardware”. Do not expect it be some kinda of OEM.
I think raw horsepower is least on the boards. It will be all about how many features can be packed on a chip. Power usage is a bit big thing but I can see that Intel has taken some wise steps in this arena. Obviously, it has some knowhow here and I am pretty sure, we should see some of its horses late this year. I am sure the battle is a uphill one for the likes of Intel and it has to face the likes of Samsung in the mobile segment. AMD has it worse imho.
However only time will tell. As we discussed yesterday, its all how the marketing department can put a twist on it and sell it well.
Actually thats a huge advanage, Intel has over ARM, eventually the mobile space has to trickle down towards the X-86 architecture, and voila everything is backwards compatible, you can load on any software which is made to work under the windows operating environment.
Nvidia’s Tegra SOC uses an ARM CPU. The only big advantage ARM has is in the power efficiency department, it cannot match the raw performance which a Intel and AMD CPU’s offer. Intel’s Atom effort was a trial in the direction, I expect Intel to compete more fiercely with each upgrades…
As I see it, I don’t think mobile computing is coming to X86… X86 is something, that is in fact, dying.
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iPhone doesn’t use x86 and nor does the iPad… very few smartphones, if any, use x86, and game consoles don’t use x86… the future doesn’t look too good for x86 or x64.
If the architecture is to survive, it will need some radical makeover. If Intel can pull off something like that they will be able to flatten ARM, but with the kind of headstart ARM has and the way Apps have become such an integral part of our mobile computing, it is huge task.
ARM also has the support in the form of Cloud. Cloud is platform agnostic. It just needs a working browser and once you are web, x86 or x64 or ARM don’t matter (once you have discounted the Flash, which will happen with HTML5).
Of course, Intel has some serious tech horsepower apart from some deep pockets. The biggest advantage that I think for Intel are its Fabs… they are simply monstrous. High-K, power-gating are huge advantages. TSMC can’t even get its 40nm in order and Intel is shipping millions of 32nm chips. Glo Fo too is yet to prove itself.
As I see it, it’s shaping up to be a fantastic fight where the monolithic Intel and its Fabs will be tested against many-headed foe called ARM that architecturally seems to be more strong.
As for AMD, I believe, the key for them is fusion. If they can get the Bobcat right, they can strike gold in Notebook sector because Intel here lacks a proper GPU part and Nvidia a proper CPU.
For me, Nvidia’s is in a biggest mess. Tegra is not enough power-efficient to matter and their core business (Chipset is dead, entry-level GPU barely alive) is facing the IGPs that are growing in performance.
Keep the ideas coming folks…
The other advantage ARM currently has in its pocket is existence of integrated wireless solutions as well (GSM/1x/3G/UMTS etc) which none of the chips from other camps have.
^^ how does it work and how does it matter? I am asking about it because I have no idea on this.
Also, at the same time you can also talk about how Nokia netbook (that is atom based) achieve 3G connectivity. Is it with an extra chip?
I am sure a noob in these embedded stuff :ashamed:
prey that x86 wins this war j/K
dying? I must be living in some parallel universe then.
ARM doesn’t have any wireless solutions integrated,all the integration is done by the partners/licensees.
In fact ARM doesn’t make any chip at all,its partners does.
Good thing about such an approach is you have a lot of options from its dozens of partners,bad thing about it is the fragmentation.
If you are talking about x86 to mobile space,Intel has just entered the market,it will surely take a few years to get upto speed.Currently atom is unattractive,but in a few revisions in architecture and process can change the landscape.Keep in mind that intel isn’t using any specific LP process nor cutting edge process for atom. Its going to change in a few years.
Yes, many ARM solutions have wireless integrated onto the same chip (i.e. modem as well as applications processors in the same package). Nokia does it with a separate chip.
If anyone here knows about this, I can comfortably say that I’d definitely be among them as I work for one such (big) licensee (big as in the topmost Mobile semiconductor co). What I meant by ARM here was not the ARM company but the ARM ecosystem, which propels the ARM architecture forward. The best thing about it is power savings, which is one of the most important factors in mobile devices.
And by the time Intel comes to par with competing with current gen ARM solutions, the competition would be much ahead. By the end of this year, you will easily see more than 1.5 GHz processors, packing symmetric multi-cores, with lot of mobile stuff already integrated onto the same package and graphics that could compete with ION (leave apart atom onboard gpu). Edit: Forgot to mention that they will still have sub-watt idle consumption.
^^ Indeed, there is lot of momentum for ARM and Intel will have to change or it will no longer be the top dog.
Everyone know that Atom is what saved Intel in a recession year… now imagine a future when ARM-based chips (running at nearly 1.5Ghz for mass production) are as good as Atom and are accompanied by software that is not as bloated as x86 code (read windows). Atom has shown that majority just want functional devices and ARM can offer the functional devices that cost less, consume less power, produce less heat.
Atom, unless Intel pulls out some trick out of its hat, will be dead in this scenario.