As far as I know, Intel is still the biggest semiconductor company with the highest R&D budget and a multiple year process lead, while ARMv8 can only be found in 1 phone, so I think Intel is safe, but Intel on the other hand has the potential to disrupt the smartphone market with their immense process lead. No ISA can save you when you have costlier transistors that perform worse and consume more energy.
Everybody knows that ARM is an inherently more efficient ISA than x86. Don't take my word. Microprocessor design veterans like Jim Keller are of that view
http://techreport.com/review/26418/amd-reveals-k12-new-arm-and-x86-cores-are-coming
Jim Keller was very complimentary about the ARMv8 ISA in his talk, saying it has more registers and "a proper three-operand instruction set."
He noted that ARMv8 doesn't require the same instruction decoding hardware as an x86 processor, leaving more room to concentrate on performance. Keller even outright said that "the way we built ARM is a little different from x86" because it "has a bigger engine." I take that to mean AMD's ARM-compatible microarchitecture is somewhat wider than its sister, x86-compatible core. We'll have to see how that difference translates into performance in the long run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTVnxaXCLg0
see video at 54:50 to 55:20
btw Intel's process lead has not helped them in the mobile market where baseband integration is key. The ARMv8 cores are being actively designed into mobile SOCs.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7925/...bit-socs-with-lte-category-67-support-in-2015
Qualcomm has standard ARMv8 64 bit CortexA57/A53 cores based top to bottom product stack with integrated baseband in 2015. Qualcomm continues to work on their custom ARMv8 core and will launch in 2016 at 16/14 FINFET.
I don't think it's failed. Samsung was just an example. Both Apple and Samsung don't rely (purely) on the silicon they design to generate money, because they do that with their tablets and phones. My point is that all companies follow the money. If they can't generate money or it isn't worth to stay in a market, they will stop making SoCs and go to someone else for their chips. Likewise, the argument was that Qualcomm could do the high-end of the market, MediaTek the low-end, etc. But it doesn't work that way. MediaTek can and will also take an A57 core from ARM and put it into their SoCs and directly compete with Qualcomm and Nvidia, that's how the market works.
Competing with Qualcomm is easier said than done. Also you don't realize that the top ARM partners are licensees who design custom cores to differentiate their products - Apple Cyclone, Qualcomm, AMD (K12), Nvidia (Denver), Marvell. That kind of effort is not easy for companies like Mediatek who do not have the resources to design custom cores.
Intel's expense? I don't see any sign of that. But with Intel invading into the tablet market this year and phones next year, the story is different from ARM. BTW, without x86, you can't do much on the desktop market, which is Intel's biggest source of money. About the same goes for servers.
Is the PC market shrinking or not. Intel is shrinking in revenues but more significantly in profitability. AMD's computing division revenues got gutted by the explosive growth of the tablet market. Tablets cannibalized low end notebooks and AMD was overexposed in the low end with Brazos and did not have a presence in high end desktops and servers like Intel to offset those massive losses.
http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...-4079-b7f7-956c8821cd8c/Intel_ARand10K_13.pdf
page 35. Intel's PC Client Group lost 2.6 billion revenue from 2011 to 2013.
http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=quarterlyearnings
AMD 2013 CS revenues were down to 3.1 billion in 2013 from 4 billion in 2012. Who gained at the expense of the x86 PC market. the ARM ecosystem of tablets, smartphones and notebooks like ARM based chromebooks.
That's how technology works, everything always keeps improving. Intel's doing the same and soon Qualcomm's "leadership in LTE baseband ..." will be gone, just like their graphics lead.
vice-versa. ARMv8 cores like Cyclone are competing with Intel big cores. So Intel's CPU leadership also faces the same challenges as ARMV8 custom cores like K12 and Denver go for Intel' server market share.
The gap is growing, not shrinking. TSMC's 16nm really is 20nm FinFET, and Intel will have a 10nm long before TSMC even has its real 14nm.
Intel's node naming is misleading.
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms/general/the-intel-nanometre-2013-02/
Intel 22nm has no significant transistor density advantage over the foundries 28nm though it does have performance advantage due to FINFET. Intel's 22nm and TSMC/Samsung/GF 28nm all use single pattern immersion lithography.
Intel's 14nm FINFET and TSMC 16FF+ and Samsung 14 FINFET are all of similar transistor density with a marginal lead to Intel. They use dual pattern immersion litho with a M1 metal pitch of 64 nm. TSMC 16FF+ has a 15% area scaling over TSMC 20nm planar. Samsung 14 FINFET has a similar 15% area scaling over 20nm planar designs.
https://markets.jpmorgan.com/research/email/-kjegkq4/GPS-1336259-0
page 4
http://globalfoundries.com/docs/def...dries-14nm-collaboration---final.pdf?sfvrsn=2
If Intel 22nm FINFET Baytrail is competing with 28nm planar tech based mobile SOCs from Qualcomm then you can figure out for yourself how things are going to be with no process node advantage in 2016.