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ARM will power 20 per cent of laptops by 2015
CHIP DESIGNER ARM could power over 20 per cent of all laptops shipped in 2015, according to analyst outfit IHS Isuppli.
IHS Isuppli has forecast that the domination of X86 chips in the laptop market will start to diminish as Microsoft releases its Windows 8 operating system. Windows 8 will be the first desktop operating system from Microsoft that will support the ARM architecture that is found in just about every smartphone in existence.
Worryingly for AMD and Intel, IHS Isuppli predicted that ARM will do extensive damage in the mainstream notebook market, the most lucrative market segment for chip makers. The firm describes this market as currently being served by AMD's E-series and Intel's Atom and Celeron M processors.
Isuppli's Matthew Wilkins said, "ARM is well suited for value notebooks, where performance isn't a key criterion for buyers. Value notebook buyers are looking for basic systems that balance an affordable price with reasonable performance. ARM processors deliver acceptable performance at a very low cost, along with unrivalled power efficiency."
What this means is that Nvidia, the firm that was never granted an X86 license by Intel, could well end up flogging chips that are in direct competition with Intel's core products. IHS Isuppli also predicted good things for ARM chip designers Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
ARM told The INQUIRER last month that it is working hard on increasing the graphics power of its system-on-chip (SoC) designs. Currently Mali represents the firm's highest performing graphics core but ARM claims that it will have games console levels of graphics power on its low-power chips within 18 months.
Although the Linux kernel has supported ARM architectures for years, there's no doubt that Microsoft's Windows 8 support will bring mass consumer appeal for ARM chips on desktop and laptop computers. An ARM representative told The INQUIRER that Windows 8 support will help the firm gain traction in the server market, another market that is dominated by X86 chips from AMD and Intel.
IHS Isuppli still foresees 80 per cent of the laptop market running on X86 chips, so it isn't panic stations for AMD or Intel just yet. However should ARM manage to take close to 20 per cent in just four years from a standing start, then questions will begin to be asked about the long term viability of the X86 architecture in general purpose computing. µ
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First, the obligatory:
@go_linux:
GNU's not UNIX. :)
@rav:
I mostly agree, with the caveat that Bulldozer won't (IIRC) have 128-bit memory space and registers, but will be capable of doing 128bit floating point ops (using 64bit upper/lower registers). This is not really what people mean when they say 128bit computing!
@Wilco:
Perhaps you don't care about the 3GB memory cap on 32bit computing, but RAM is a popular marketing point for laptops. Worth considering.
General:
I agree with those questioning the importance of Windows 8 support. With the totally unfamiliar UI, and no legacy software support, it seems like it would be on roughly equal footing with the alternatives.
And people will overwhelmingly stay on x86 for business purposes, because 99% of your existing software will not work on ARM without an emulator/interpretation layer, which will be far from flawless.
Performance of modern CPUs is more than enough for almost all users. Few people need much more performance and fewer people are willing to pay $/£1000+ for the fastest CPUs. The biggest issue on laptops is poor battery life.
So ARM can quite easily enter x86 dominated markets simply by providing good enough performance with much better battery life at a lower cost. Current ARMs already beat Atom by a good margin (btw. Windows 8 runs pretty well on Tegra 2).
By the end of this year you'll get another 3-4x boost with the Cortex-A15. So the performance will be more than adequate for laptops.
Note that ARM currently being 32-bit is a non-issue. How many x86 CPUs run a 64-bit OS? x86 is almost exclusively 32-bit 8 years after x64. And no, there won't be an 128-bit x86. Ever.
@SLAP
ARM may have nVidia as a licensee but GeForce is NOT licensed by ARM and not likely to be either.
On-die graphics is THE ONLY play for the laptop value market. The price/performance energy ceiling is the laptop "Galactic Barrier". ARM is still a generation away at 32 bit AND probably 2 generations away with any on-die gpu. Tegra is still tablet silicon. And as I said, the market is not static.
@JOHN
PowerVR had their x86 shot and blew it and became the handheld GPU design house.
The problem with ARM RISC is it's licensed tech: CPU and APU. There is no consolidation. If ARM were to acquire PowerVR then maybe excellent silicon would result, but now the tech is scattered.
@ALE
Windows 8 is said to run on ARM RISC. BUT, NOT legacy software. It will not be backwards compatible with x86 software. No old games, video etc, etc.
@go_linux
I did not say the the WORLD runs on x86. I said the WORLD is DESIGNED with x86. Engineering and design is all x86.
I'm not talking about the Cereal boxtop CAD software that runs on linux either.
And I wasn't mistaking performance for market. The market is PERFORMANCE! You pay for performance. Why do you think Intel whups up on AMD so much? Just because it is cheap doesn't mean someone will want it, VIA is an excellent example. In three years, the most expensive piece of hardware will NOT be the CPU/GPU. It will be the O/S, battery, storage, memory then the CPU. The CPU/GPU is quickly being less of a price driver than say storage or the screen. Besides AMD and Intel's low performance is NOW 2 generations ahead of anything that ARM or nVidia can place in a LAPTOP, not Netbook or Tablet. Sure there are ATOMs in Laptops but they really suck. Remember when the WORLD was going to see a $300-400 laptop? Well in 3 years the world will see $300-400 laptops running x86 with Radeon 6000 cores on-die. As I said, AMD and Intel will not be standing still.
$300-$400 will be the minimum entry point. Microsft is going to want $100 per copy of Windows.
There is no doubt that Tegra will appear in a laptop someday. But not at 20% market penetration. Thats is just an out and out WAG.
"If ARM wants 20% or the laptop market then they are going to have to acquire AMD to do it."
No, they already have Nvidia as a licencee - Nvidia needs a cpu to combine with their gpus - if they don't go the "apu" route they will eventually die.
Look up PowerVR that is how ARM will be better than Intel on the GPU
The key-word in the article is Winblows 8. That is what the analyst thinks would make the difference. Look at the most expensive smartphones and think on how many people really use more than what they provide... just in a bigger screen.
I think you're mistaking "performance" for "the market", and including "maximum graphics performance" as a requirement. Obviously the ARM chips are already working in a lot of devices!
And while I like the x86 architecture (proving complex instruction sets, non-orthogonal registers, real I/O ports instead of memory-mapped are what's wanted) there certainly should be a competitor to the x86. I'm pretty sure that Chinese for one aren't wedded to x86, and maybe even go out of their way to NOT use an x86; there are other motives than performance in play. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if even some limeys would avoid x86 if possible out of a vague national pride.
ARM currently has a good niche in tablets and portable devices, and I hope it grows.
Oh, and the WORLD runs on Unix, not on the x86 architecture.
IHS iSupply forgets that the evolutionary environment for cpu's or should we say APU's is not static. The performance ceiling is currently x86-64. Currently ARM is RISC-32 bit and can't run x86-64 software. Which by the way the WORLD is designed with.
ARM RISC-32 also can not begin to compete graphically with AMD Radeon. While ARM is trying hard to release a gpu, they can not begin to compete with the design portfolio of RADEON. If Intel can't build a capable on-die gpu then why does iSupply expect ARM to be able to do that?
While ARM cpu's would have to speed up drastically to even be in the same league as x86 that will also come with a huge energy cost. x86 is NOW already there and in 2 years will be much more efficient. AMD and Intel are busy evolving downward with ever increasing energy efficiencies, while at the same time outdistancing ARM RISC-32 in HPC and PC cpu's and APU's.
ARM RISC-64 is at least 2 years away and AMD Bulldozer is anticipated at 128 bit this year.
In short IHS iSuppy is throwing words and hopng that they will stick. While nVidia has certainly staked out some territory with Tegra II it too doesn't even come close to Fusion's Radeon core. Nvidia has also lost the mid price point market to Sandy Bridge and Fusion, and as it appears, all console games will be Radeon for the next generation. nVidia is quickly losing market share and relevance as a graphics player. Without the mid pricepoint market to subsidize new product refreshes, the cost to present silicon becomes prohibitive. AMD simply burns last year's discrete core on next year's Fusion APU. Oh yeah, all of the console Radeon cores will run with RISC Architecture.
The notebook or laptop is an extension of the desktop pc. The netbooks and tablets are communications and information devices. The tablet is what the PDA wanted to be and fits that niche quite nicely.
If ARM wants 20% or the laptop market then they are going to have to acquire AMD to do it. As 100% of that market will either be Fusion or Sandy Bridge.