What is the difference between ARM architecture and the typical architecture in CPUs, and why is it so revolutionary?
In: Engineering
At one time, the x86 architecture was all about performance and the ARM architecture was all about low power. In the last decade or so, they have converged as phones, tablets, and laptops started to become competitive. One represents “CISC” and the other “RISC”, but these are merely marketing terms today. ARM has adopted lots of complex instructions while x86 took on RISC internally, squeezing out differences of substance. In the end, you see ARM in low power devices and x86 in servers and supercomputers. The fanbois and marketeers will yell at me, but the meaningful differences are today at the software level, and both ARM and x86 happily run a lot of the same types of software.
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