What has changed so that chip makers have moved from x86 to arm?
In: Technology
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.
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