Intel has been for decades dominating the desktop industry with AMD popping up now and then to take a big chunk off its market. However, unifying these competitors is Intel’s x86 architecture upon which their processors are made making it the real dominator of the industry. But that might change soon as the industry is trying to push Arm-based processors to the frontline to compete with x86 based processors.
The major differentiator between these two architectures is two different methods for building instruction set architectures (ISAs): CISC and RISC. The x86 architecture is based on CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) ISA which focuses on computing relatively complex instructions that could encode more than one operation. This leads to better performance, but more power consumption by the processor. On the other hand, Arm architecture is based on RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) ISA, meaning it uses fixed-length instructions for exactly one operation. This method, because of its simple instructions, requires fewer transistors which in turn makes it power efficient, lowers the cost and reduces the die size. Simply put, x86 aims for peak performance while Arm aims for better energy efficiency. It is for this reason why Arm-based processors are used in smartphones, wearables, and other devices where low power demand is key instead of Intel chips. The major issue preventing the PC industry from using Arm-based processors is lack of software compatibility. While Windows and Linux do run on Arm-based systems, applications created for these platforms are usually x86 compatible. These applications can run on an Arm-based system with the help of a translation layer software but at the cost of performance.
The volume of Arm-based processors shipped is 10 times greater than x86 processors. This huge market has put fabrication companies like Samsung and TSMC two generations ahead of Intel which is sticking to its 2014's 14-nm technology. This year, Microsoft introduced the Surface Pro X with the Microsoft SQ1 processor, an Arm-based processor built off Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx SoC. The laptop reported good performance and battery life but was riddled with software issues. Native Windows apps and Office suite were the only ones supported at launch and software support down the line were limited.
However, the biggest push for Arm-based systems came from Apple when at WWDC 2020 it announced its Arm-based silicon will power the Mac lineup, ditching the x86 platform it has been using for 15 years. This is not the first time that Apple has made such a transition. In 2005, Apple announced it was moving from PowerPC made by AIM Alliance (Apple-IBM-Motorola) to the x86 platform. Apple formally announced its M1 chip on November 11th powering its desktop ecosystem starting with a 13-inch MacBook Air, a 13-inch MacBook Pro, and a Mac mini. This shift for the whole Mac lineup over two years means developers have to eventually adapt and create for the Arm-based system. At the same time, Apple has provided developers with Rosetta 2 translation layer to run x86 apps on Arm. Promising high performance per watt from M1 and three times more speed than “the best-selling Windows laptop in its class”, it sure is a riscy move from Apple and only time will tell if it pays off for them. This might not be death bell for the x86 architecture as it will still dominate the high-performance PC and server segment, but still a welcome and much awaited move to end its reign.
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