Intel keeps laying into ARM
A BLOKE FROM INTEL has been throwing things at fabless Brit chip Firm ARM.
ARM may provide the chips that power Apple's all-conquering Iphone and millions of users around the world may be showing off the device by pouring virtual beer down their throats or homing in on Google maps by spreading their fingers wide in an awkward if well-practised action.
But an obviously-miffed Intel loves taking potshots at ARM at any opportunity, mainly because ARM has chips in over a billion mobile internet devices and Intel's are in, ooh, half a dozen or so.
"The shortcomings of the Iphone are not because of Apple," Intel's director of ultra-mobile ecosystems, Pankaj Kedia, told Intel Developer Forum in Taipei, Taiwan. "The shortcomings of the Iphone have come from ARM," he said.
First up, isn't God the director of ecosystems? And how "eco" are wireless networks, Wimax and buzzing, clanking phones and the associated gadgetry? Not very, innit? Indeed, Kedia's very job description makes plain that he has no scruples and we can probably discount any utterance he makes.
Kedia went on. "The smartphone of today is not very smart," he said. "The problem they have today is they use ARM."
He added: "If you want to run full internet, you're going to have to run an Intel-based architecture."
Intel has this idea that to run the Interweb properly you need an X86-based chip. This is cobblers and it doesn't get any truer each time an Intel knob says it. But it doesn't stop them saying it.
Intel used to make ARM chips, of course, but gave up in 2006 and flogged that business to Marvell a firm it used to own if our fuzzy memory still serves us well.
Now it's been forced to get on the low-cost, low-margin bandwagon and it doesn't like it. The behemoth prefers an 80-90 per cent market share and doesn't like sniffing around the almighty ARM pit.
Expect plenty more cobblers to come. ยต
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i'm all for x86 in portable devices. i think it'll help lessen the gap between PDA's, etc. and computers.
Really, why Intel feels the need to hire a gob-on-a-stick to slam ARM is beyond me.
Make a descent low power high speed RISC based processor and there you have it! ARM produce a wonderful chip that doesn't need to prove itself because of it's uptake. The x86 architecture is shite (and everybody who's ever programmed a Motorola 68xxx processor will tell you) , it's a legacy ridden pile of crap that we all have to put up with. The most significant innovations on that platform have come from AMD with the 64bit extensions that work - kudos AMD!
Anyway, lay off ARM you knobs and concentrate on lowering your prices to give us consumers a better deal and go ram that piffley little thing called the atom where the sun don't shine. Nuff said.

xxx
Intel needs to be kicked hard where it hurts. The other chipcos should gang up on them. Personally, I'm quite impressed by ARM chips in mobile internet devices. What I haven't been impressed by is Intel's ATOM chip in my netbook. Talk about a disappointing piece of silicon. Maybe the quadcore part will come of age though.
He knows nothing about eco-system... He knows only one thing, that is his hot hot Atom in his pants that is cooling down in the market.
C'mon cry babies. Just because Apple ditched x86 for ARM, you can't go around the world bashing them. Grow up folks and welcome some good challenge.
" Grow up folks and welcome some good challenge." ... posted by : Marty, 23 October 2008 

Marty,

ARM already challenges them, Marty, at the Interface of their Vulnerability To Proxy Code Injection and Remote Control of Systems Administration ....... Tier 0 Core Control/Kernel Privilege.

A Conundrum Presently Crashing through the BGC3 Portal for Assimilation Capture.

It is also a Quantum BetaTest of Melinda and Bill's Virtual Savvy for SurReal Joint AdDVenTuring in Soviet Socialist Republican Satellite AIR&dD Spaces ..... for Cosmonauts lead with Astronauts as sure as Cosmology hosts Astrology. 

The x86 is a complex architecture, which requires lots of gates to implement. Compared to a RISC architecture, this means two things: higher power consumption and larger die size. These both affect cost. When your margins are narrow, as is the case with most high-volume consumer products, a RISC architecture is pretty much unavoidable. The good thing is that the Linux and BSD software ecosystems run as well on RISC chips as on CISC chips and avoid software lock-in.