puede ARM desafiar al x86 en el campo de los chips de pc?

More than twenty years ago, Microsoft's Windows operating system and Intel's X86 chip swept the entire computer market, until they met Apple. apple's rise to prominence made the once unbreakable Wintel camp crack, "Windows + X86" is no longer the only option. You can also choose "macOS + X86". And in 2020, the release of the M1 chip will also pull the ARM architecture into the battle, X86 ushered in a new competitor.

More than twenty years ago, Microsoft's Windows operating system and Intel's X86 chip swept the entire computer market, until they met Apple. apple's rise to prominence made the once unbreakable Wintel camp crack, "Windows + X86" is no longer the only option. You can also choose "macOS + X86". And in 2020, the release of the M1 chip will also pull the ARM architecture into the battle, X86 ushered in a new competitor.

Now, in the field of PC chips, can ARM challenge X86?

X86 VS ARM

As we all know, there is an underlying difference between the two computing architectures, ARM and X86, which used to represent the two camps of mobile and PC respectively.

X86, which should be no stranger to you, is arguably the most successful CPU architecture of all time, including the Intel 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, and 80486 series ending in 86, based on the CISC architecture (Complex Instruction Set Computer), which focuses on using a minimum of The X86 architecture is powerful not because it is a complex computer.

The power of the X86 architecture lies not in itself, but in the variety of programs built around it that are based on the X86 instruction architecture. However, as the computer industry evolves, the number of integrated instruction sets on the X86 increases in exchange for higher performance, putting more and more load on the hardware, which inevitably increases power consumption and design difficulty.

Compared to X86, ARM simplifies the architecture significantly, retaining only the required instructions, allowing the entire processor to be more simplified, with small size and high performance.

The ARM architecture was originally designed and introduced by ARM Holdings plc, which was founded in 1990 by Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology. Initially, ARM stood for Acorn RISC Machine but later changed to Advanced RISC Machine. ARM Ltd develops the ARM architecture and licenses the IP, allowing licensees, partners, and customers to build chips into their own designs, and products.

As the name suggests, ARM is based on the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture, which, unlike CISC-based processors, focuses on reducing instruction complexity and high clock speeds in a single cycle. In short, RISC emphasizes efficiency per instruction cycle, while CISC emphasizes efficiency per program instruction, so RISC can be considered more efficient.

The advantages of ARM architecture are clear. One is low cost, which usually does not require expensive equipment; two is simpler and more compact design; three is low power consumption, which means high stability, low heat dissipation cost, long battery life, and smaller product size can be considered; four is high freedom, which allows technical integration with other IP companies' solutions, etc., as long as the core license is bought.

High-cost performance and low power consumption make ARM architecture in the mobile market more than Intel have more advantages, like Apple A-series, Qualcomm Snapdragon series, and Heidi Kirin series are based on ARM architecture development. If X86 is the most successful CPU architecture for PC, then ARM is the absolute victory in the mobile ecosystem.

The stable situation of "ARM for mobile and X86 for PC" has been broken by the M1 chip. With the Apple Mac product line fully defected to the ARM architecture chip, ARM chip market share, which once accounted for only a small part of the personal computer chip market, is growing rapidly.

Progress in ARM-based processors

How much of an impact did Apple have on ARM, whose market share in PC chips was just 2% in Q3 2020 before ARM-compatible M1 Macs began selling. More than a year later, according to Mercury Research's Q1 2022 data, estimates for ARM PC client share (including Chromebooks and Apple's M1-based Macs as well as X86 desktop and mobile CPUs in total client size estimates) are 11.3 percent, up from 10.3 percent in the previous quarter and just 5.9 percent from a year ago That's a doubling from 5.9 percent a year ago.

Dean McCarron, the principal analyst at Mercury Research, confirmed that ARM's PC market share growth was driven by strong sales of Macs. IDC data shows that Apple's Mac business continued to grow in the first quarter of 2022, with cumulative Mac and MacBook shipments of 7.2 million units, up from 6.9 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2021. shipments of 6.9 million units, up 4.3 percent year-over-year. Apple's share of the PC market grew from 8.1 percent to 8.9 percent, even against the backdrop of a shrinking market. apple is credited with the growth in ARM's share of the PC segment.

In November 2020, Apple launched its first self-developed computer chip based on ARM architecture, M1, and three PC products equipped with M1 chips at the "One More Thing" conference. The M1 chip not only means that Apple and Intel's 15-year-long "love affair" ended with a "breakup", but also let everyone see the huge potential of the ARM architecture in the PC.

Once the ARM architecture is not favored by PC manufacturers, because it requires a lot of RAM, and more importantly, there are compatibility problems with the Windows operating system.

As early as 2012, Microsoft tried to launch Surface RT with ARM-based Nvidia Tegra 3 processors, and as an early attempt at Windows on ARM, Surface RT turned out to be disastrous, running slowly, incompatible with Windows 8, and not compatible with all but the Microsoft pre-loaded apps and "Metroid" in the Windows Store. It was unable to run older X86 Win32 apps, except for Microsoft pre-loaded apps and "Metro" apps in the Windows App Store.

In 2016, Microsoft released an ARM version of Windows 10, but it waited until 2019, when the first Surface Pro X was released, before it was truly available to users, and had many limitations, such as only supporting ARM64 drivers; some games that rely on OpenGL or proprietary DRM cannot run; no support for ARM Hypervisor platforms ...... and so on, making the user's evaluation of it very bad.

Microsoft's series of failed attempts to use ARM chips as a PC platform was considered impractical, but apparently the situation today has been dramatically reversed.

On the one hand, Apple's ARM-based processor technology, Apple Silicon, has demonstrated outstanding performance that is not inferior to Intel X86 chips. Up to now, Apple has launched a number of high-performance chips based on ARM architecture, such as M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra, the chip details can refer to "Apple released 114 billion transistors M1 Ultra: 12 years of self-developed 34 processors". What's more, after Apple announced a series of performance innovations based on self-researched M series new products and Mac OS, the price of the entire Macbook series was lowered, providing the biggest price/performance improvement in recent years.

Although we did not wait for the long-awaited M2 chip at this year's spring launch, a few days ago Bloomberg news, well-known Apple tipster Mark Gurman pointed out on Bloomberg that Apple is testing four different M2 chips in at least nine Mac models from developer logs, and since internal testing is a key step in developing products, it is expected that the relevant The devices are expected to be released in a few months. In other words, the M2 is getting closer to release.

On the other hand, Microsoft and Qualcomm, which had a big fall in Windows on ARM, are also starting to catch up.

Microsoft not only launched Windows 11 ARM, bringing 64-bit application emulation for ARM, but also rumored 2020 to develop its own ARM-based processors, and in October last year, Microsoft's Surface division issued a job request looking for an SoC architect, which means that Microsoft may start working on developing its own for Surface devices PC chip.

By the beginning of this year, Microsoft directly hired Apple senior engineer Mike Filippo, so that the Azure team to develop its own server chip. Bloomberg analysis said that this move shows that Microsoft is accelerating its self-research chip process to power Azure cloud computing services.

Qualcomm, the only ARM chip supplier since Microsoft announced its WOA strategy, announced the first chipset built specifically for PCs, Snapdragon 8cx, in 2018 and Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 chips in 2020, with no changes to the processors themselves except for enhanced AI performance and support for new versions of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standards.

The biggest problem with the Windows on Snapdragon platform is actually app compatibility. By December 2021, Qualcomm launched Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 with a 60% increase in GPU performance, so I don't know if the app compatibility issue will be addressed while significantly improving performance.

In addition to research and development on the Snapdragon 8cx series, Qualcomm also acquired Nuvia, a company founded by three engineers from Apple's former A-series processors, in January last year. Qualcomm CEO Cristian Amon has said that the Nuvia team has made progress on ARM-based processors and that laptops powered by Nuvia will be available at the end of 2023 to users. Even a few days ago, Qualcomm also rumored that it will take a stake in ARM.

It can be said that Qualcomm is quite imperative in the field of PC chips, but by 2023, Qualcomm this unshipped chip against perhaps Apple's M2 chip, wants to win in one fell swoop, it is difficult.

ARM itself in 2020 released based on ARMv8.2 instruction set Cortex-X1 architecture, performance reached a new height, by the end of March 2021, and released a new ARMv9 instruction set, more arithmetic power, is no longer limited to the mobile market, but will also force PC, HPC high-performance computing, deep learning, and other new markets.

In addition, Samsung, MediaTek, the mainland's Feiteng, Rexchip Micro, as well as startups this core is also coveting this market.

Samsung's Exynos 1000 processor, which was reportedly under development in 2020, may also be used in Windows PCs. the Samsung Exynos family of chips, although primarily developed for the cell phone series, has appeared many times in Samsung's own 2-in-1 laptops, or in Google's Chromebooks, such as the 2012 Samsung Sammobile recently reported that Samsung is developing its next-generation flagship processor, the Exynos 2300, which is model number S5E9935 and codenamed Quadra. ", I do not know if the future will appear on other notebooks.

MediaTek, on the other hand, directly demonstrated its commitment to entering the Windows on ARM platform at the Executive Summit last November, with Eric Fisher, it's vice president of corporate sales and business development, saying, " Apple has shown the world that it can be done. The Wintel partnership that has lasted so long is bound to come under some pressure, and once that relationship comes under pressure, companies like us have an opportunity. But since the program is still in its early stages, it is unknown when it will be commercially available.

On the mainland, Feiteng mainly does ARM architecture server CPU; Rexchip Micro released a new flagship core RK3588 ARM PC overall solution at the end of last year; this core technology is mainly dedicated to the development of compatible Arm general intelligent computing system, providing chip products and general computing one-stop solution, news in February this year shows that its chip products have entered the engineering design phase.

In general, the strength of the future ARM architecture in the field of PC chips should not be underestimated.

X86 takes on tough competition

In fact, before the 80386, there were more than a dozen manufacturers producing X86 CPUs, but with the suppression of Intel, the lapse of the license, and the continuous upgrading of performance, only AMD survived by developing its own AMD64. But with Intel's suppression, license failure, and performance upgrades, other manufacturers have disappeared in the long history, only AMD through its own research and development of AMD64 survived, and Intel cross-licensing compatible AMD X86-64, creating the 64-bit era of X86.

At the Intel 2022 Investor Conference in February this year, Pat Gelsinger unveiled the CPU roadmap, which is expected to launch the 13th generation of Raptor Lake in the second half of this year. It is reported that Raptor Lake will bring a 2-digit performance increase with stronger overclocking capabilities, using Intel 7 process technology and high-performance hybrid architecture, while compatible with LGA 1700 / 1800 slots.

Meteor Lake is expected to ship in 2023 and will be built using Intel's 4 processes, while Arrow Lake follows in 2024 and is the first chip to be built using Intel's A20 and external processes. Both will use an improved 18A process node and have MCM CPU, SOC, and GPU IP integrated into the same package.

On the flip side, AMD had allied with ARM a decade ago to launch an ARM server that focused on low power consumption, though it ended in failure and reverted to the X86 camp. Since the launch of the first Ryzen chip in 2017, AMD has ushered in an era of "turnaround and sing".

Last November, AMD officially announced the 5nm Zen4 processor, the successor to the 7nm Zen3 architecture, and the emergence of the Zen 4 architecture marked the first time that 5nm was used in an X86 desktop system. In its 1Q 2022 financial results, AMD announced its roadmap plan for 2022-2023 with adjustments and upgrades. Among other things, AMD's Zen 4 core architecture will be used in three processors: Raphael for enthusiast desktops, Dragon Range for high-end gaming laptops, and Phoenix for thin and light laptops.

The Raphael, powered by the 5nm Zen 4 process, is expected to launch in the second half of 2022, and the Dragon Range, which consumes just 55W, will launch in 2023. The Phoenix APU will utilize Zen 4 and RDNA 3 cores, support LPDDR5, and PCIe 5 is expected in 2023 and is likely to be launched at CES 2023.

Conclusion

It is impossible to compare ARM and X86 because both processor architectures have their strengths and weaknesses, and ARM's excellent power consumption and heat dissipation allow it to make the most of its advantages in fixed situations. Meanwhile, Intel's X86 CISC architecture traditionally allows for more complex instructions to be executed per clock, allowing for faster and more powerful computer performance, and easier performance scaling.

But it is undeniable that X86 is no longer the only choice, in Apple, Qualcomm, Microsoft, and other major manufacturers of power, ARM will become the field of PC chips that can not be ignored.