Intel and ARM not on collision course
Don’t expect any joint Microsoft/ARM handiwork to show up much before the latter half of 2011, however, with G&C predicting that “the earliest timeline of a hardware roll-out is likely 1.5-2 years away, with more fully debugged versions likely in 3-4 years.”
Posted on 10 August 2010 by by Sylvie Barak. Tags: 1 GhZ , Android , ARM , atom , chips , Cortex M , embedded , hardware , IA architecture , Intel , manufacturing , marvell , Meego , Microsoft , mobile devices , netbook , notebook , platforms , Qualcomm , semiconductors , smartbook , smartphone , Tablet , TI , WindRiver , x86
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The perceived clash between Intel and ARM is “misguided” according to a new report from independent investment bank Gleacher & Company.
In a report entitled “Assessing ARM vs. x86: The Battle is Heating Up,” G&C says both firms “have a significant uphill battle in penetrating each other’s served market,” and goes on to explain why it believes embedded ARM vs. embedded IA architecture (Atom) is an unfair apples-to-oranges comparison.
For a start, says G&C, both firms deal with differentiated segments, serving different application loads with different performance expectations.
“With the increased traction of Android and universal support, we welcome the first real meaningful benchmarks between the x86 and ARM hardware platforms,” writes Doug Freedman, the managing director of research at G&C.
The second point, says Freedman, is that advanced processing likely assists Atom’s low power aspirations, with Atom, in theory being able to achieve the same power envelope as ARM if it properly leverages its manufacturing resources and prowess. Currently, ARM’s Cortex A9 sips around 300mW whereas Intel’s Atom is still at approximately 3W, but the gap is in no way insurmountable.
G&C also believes Intel will be able to tweak its power consumption through its programming ecosystem, supported by its WindRiver and MeeGo protgs, to maximize power usage even more.
“Do not expect ARM to support full notebook functionality,” warns G&C to those who have enthusiastically gushed about the little British chippy’s chances to not only move in cellular circles but also take a chunk out of of the netbook market to boot.
“ARM embedded family products (Cortex-M series) have yet to demonstrate the ability to run on notebooks,” writes Freedman who adds that while the standard high-end 1GHz ARM core – used by TI, Qualcomm, NVIDIA and Marvell – may be sufficient for smartphones and tablets, it is not yet enough to compete with the Atom’s 1.66GHz and the “significant amount of processing overhead for application, O/S, and driver requirements,” needed with a PC.
“Although ARM families offer a broad range of performance levels, we note that the high-end (Cortex-A) is not optimized or proven for portable embedded applications,” he proclaimed.
Last month when Microsoft bought an ARM license, many analysts got very excited about the prospects of what such a partnership might yield, with ideas ranging from ARM powered Xboxes, to Microsoft’s own custom chips, to better support for Microsoft’s embedded products. G&C subscribes more to the latter idea, noting that it believes the recent agreement will be targeted towards smaller class devices.
“In our view, the move is intended to: 1) loosen IA dependency on emerging classes of MSFT devices and/or 2) establish a more hardware agnostic approach,” says Freedman.
Don’t expect any joint Microsoft/ARM handiwork to show up much before the latter half of 2011, however, with G&C predicting that “the earliest timeline of a hardware roll-out is likely 1.5-2 years away, with more fully debugged versions likely in 3-4 years.”
Good news for both ARM and Intel is that G&C doesn’t much see virtualization becoming a problem or a cannibalizing factor to either firm’s business. “We feel that the rise of Cloud computing/Virtualization will not materially impact demand for high-performance processors at the local level, as we portend that applications still require a significant amount of local processing for a true ‘notebook experience’,” posits the firm.
Freedman also points out that Cloud programmers also “recognize that the law of large numbers favors use of local processing power, while convenience is best serviced by cloud portability with local response times.”
In conclusion, the investment bank believes “the threat of imminent competition between x86 and ARM fighting for like devices remains further out than investors and industry analysts believe.”
Intel’s move into smartphones and ARM’s push into netbooks and notebooks will likely be met with user frustration, claims G&C, although both can go some way to closing the gap in power and performance.
“We simply feel that in the near- to medium-term, disruption via ARM to Intel’s core end-markets is NOT likely given the wide delta in processing power.”
The company did offer a parting word of warning to ARM, however, noting that while Intel certainly faces an uphill battle in terms of entering, and subsequently penetrating, ARM’s stronghold within smaller form factors “we do believe that Intel could pose more of a longer-term threat due to its manufacturing leadership.”
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