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Tech Briefing: AMD Gets ARM’d

1/16/2013 9:23:17 AM

We investigate why ARM CPUs could signal the end of the x86 computing era

The end is nigh for the era of x86 computing. And that means the PC as we know it is not long for this world. It’s awfully tempting to draw that conclusion right now, what with devices and chips powered by the alternative ARM architecture popping up all over the metaphorical shop. But is it actually true?

Let’s kick off by considering who and what ARM is, how it operates and why it’s increasingly a threat to the x86 establishment. The key difference between ARM and x86 isn’t actually architectural. It’s corporate structure.

Are we seeing the beginning of the end of the x86 era?

Are we seeing the beginning of the end of the x86 era?

These days, only Intel and AMD make x86 compatible chips of any significance. Their designs are entirely in-house and they share only compatibility with the core x86 instruction set and some extensions, such as SSE and AVC. The model for ARM chips, however, is completely different.

ARM itself doesn’t make any chips at all but it licenses both the ARM instruction set, in various guises, and fully tooled up CPU cores and associated circuitry. A roster of companies well into double digits manufactures ARM-compatible chips, either by taking complete ARM designs off the shelf or cooking up some cores of their own. Most makers of ARM chips take pre-designed cores and integrate them into some kind of multi-purpose chip. But a few, including Qualcomm, and most recently Apple with its A6 and A6X chips in the iPhone 5 and iPad 4, design their own CPU cores. Either way, the upshot it fierce competition and rapid innovation of a sort that makes the x86 market look very, very stale.

Microsoft’s Surface uses ARM technology to drive its new Windows RT OS

Microsoft’s Surface uses ARM technology to drive its new Windows RT OS

If that’s what makes ARM chips different from a business background, they’re architecturally opposed to x86, too. To really simplify the story, ARM chips start off from an assumed position of low cost and high efficiency and have been working towards delivering high performance. Meanwhile, x86 is traditionally a high performance architecture that’s been driving towards improved power efficiency. To put it another way, ARM chips have traditionally been found in mobile and embedded devices and now look set to break out into wider use, while x86 chips were all about relatively big iron desktop, workstations and servers and are now being squeezed into ultra-mobile gadgets.

As ever, though, it’s not quite as simple as that. Part of the problem for x86 is that the mobile and embedded markets are where all the growth, excitement and innovation are right now. Traditional desktops are a slowly dying breed, laptops are doing okay but are threatened by an existential crisis in the form of tablets and tablet convertibles. Even servers, now the x86 heartland, are under assault by a plague of microservers powered by ARM chips.

The HTC 8X is powered by a Qualcomm S4 CPU

The HTC 8X is powered by a Qualcomm S4 CPU

Seemingly backing up this picture is a recent trend for established operators in the x86 space to announce plans for ARM-based activities. The two highest profile examples here are Microsoft and AMD. Windows 8 is currently rolling out in both x86 and ARM compatible flavours. That’s a huge symbolic shift, even if it’s unclear whether Windows RT, as the ARM-compatible build is known, will gain any traction. At the same time, AMD has announced plans to produce server chips using ARM-licensed architectures. Now you could argue that AMD’s move reflects its failure to compete with Intel in a fair x86 fight. But whatever the reason, it does leave Intel looking increasingly isolated. A single outfit, albeit a massive one, taking on the rest of the world. What’s more, while ARM seems to be assimilating traditional x86 markets, there’s no doubting Intel has struggled to make significant inroads into ARM’s territory. Intel’s Atom chips have been on the market getting on for five years and have yet to make a noticeable dent in ultra-mobile markets.

The final piece of the puzzle involves the notion of ‘good enough’ computing. This is the idea that for many applications, you only need so much computing power. There’s plenty of evidence that traditional x86 CPU technology is close to or may already have reached this point. Take Intel’s own product planning. For several generations of PC processors, Intel has prioritized power efficiency and graphics over conventional CPU performance. And so Intel’s mainstream CPUs have been stuck on four cores for several years, with relatively minor speed bumps and tweaks for improved IPC or instructions per clock. The increased transistor budget made available by shrinking manufacturing technology has either been spent on increasing the complexity of the integrated graphics core or simply passed over for greater margins. If Intel was remotely pushing the raw performance part of the package, we’d have six- and eight-core chips for the LGA1155 socket.

So let’s assume we have good enough computing already on the PC. The argument then turns to how far away the ARM horde is from delivering that same level of good-enough performance. Here, too, we have some carry trends scary for Intel that is. ARM has a pair of new processor families that look set to which is just beginning to appear in devices. Cortex A15’s big party trick is out-of-order instruction execution. We’ve covered the detailed implications of this in detail in PCFormat’s passim, but suffice to say it makes a big difference to inter-process communication (IPC). Early benchmarks of A15-powered devices suggest it’s a huge step forward for ARM and easily has the legs on Intel’s current Atom chips, which rather ironically remain in order at the moment.

Next up is the ARM Cortex A50 Series. In simple terms, there are just 64-bit rehashes of existing 32-bit ARM designs. So the A53 is a 64-bit Cortex A7, the A57 a 64-bit A15. In this context, it’s the A57 that’s really interesting. Tweaks to the existing A15 pipeline, along with wider floating point execution, are said to boost performance by 30 to 40 per cent. A15 is probably more than twice as fast as existing ARM cores and perhaps 50 per cent or more faster than existing Atom cores. So A15 with a 40 per cent boost is going to be one hell of an ultra-mobile CPU core. Suddenly, it’s possible to imagine ARM cores approaching that good-enough performance territory.

ARM's Cortex-A50 series of processors are based on the ARMv8

ARM's Cortex-A50 series of processors are based on the ARMv8

Of course, Intel won’t be standing still. Next year will see the first new Atom CPU core design since the original launched in early 2008. IT’s going to be out-of-order and the fight with ARM Cortex A57 and indeed other high performance ARM cores is going to be spectacular.

There can only be one winner. But will it be Intel?

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