What is the difference between ARM architecture and the typical architecture in CPUs, and why is it so revolutionary?
In: Engineering
all microchips work in a similar way, they have a set of things they can be told to do using instructions. There are two ways we can make a microchip do complicated things: build complex instructions in hardware (CISC), or use a reduced set of instructions (RISC) and build the complicated thing in software.
Basically an ARM cpu can be built with fewer physical components which means it can run using less power but the list of instructions needed to make it do some work is a little longer, while a more traditional desktop cpu from Intel or AMD needs more components which requires more power to run but needs a shorter list of instructions to achieve the same work.
There is a lot of extra detail here but in the end they’re about the same in terms of capability, and as mentioned elsewhere ARM have been trending towards a more complex set of instructions and for a long time x86 (Intel/AMD) have used something like a RISC cpu inside their processors and provide their complex instruction sets through software
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