What is the difference between ARM architecture and the typical architecture in CPUs, and why is it so revolutionary?
In: Engineering
Think of an instruction set as the “language” that is hard-coded on the chip. At one time a few decades ago it was true that ARM was a simplified language and x86 was much more complex. Today that’s not really the case.
ARM is not revolutionary. There isn’t no fundamental reason inherent to the instruction set for one to be more efficient than another.
For decades, x86 chipmakers were focused on peak performance. Intel engineers were excellent at that and consequently x86 dominated the market. Because of the shift to mobile computing, the market now values efficiency over peak performance and that left x86 chipmakers who had spent decades ignoring power consumption in their fanatical quest to make the fastest chips in a bad spot.
It could have been different. If, in the early days of mobile computing, Intel’s mobile offering, called “Atom processors” were even close to competitive in the power/performance balance, it’s entirely possible that most mobile devices today would run on x86 instead of ARM. History turned out the way it did because Intel was not ready and able to compete in the mobile processing space when it emerged. Now mobile computing is mature and x86 has been largely shut out.
Because desktop computing is a much smaller segment of the market it is now possible to imagine the dominant mobile computing architecture, ARM, breaking into the desktop market.
TL;DR: Intel used to make the best chips. They missed the memo that everything was going mobile. So now they don’t make the best chips anymore.
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