I don't think they need to compete with Intel. The numbers I've seen suggests Intel ships around 300-400 Million processors per year[1]. In 2014, 12 Billon (wi

I don't think they need to compete with Intel. The numbers I've seen suggests Intel ships around 300-400 Million processors per year[1]. In 2014, 12 Billon (with a B) devices with ARM cores shipped[2]. In 2011, around 500 Million MIPS based cores shipped[3]. These are obviously very different businesses. But it's clear there is an enormous market for licensable low-end IP cores that are used in everything from cars, cable boxes, TVs, cellphones (many phones have multiple cores internally to operate functions like the cellular baseband), etc. Most of the licensees are just gluing together licensed cores and contracting foundries like TSMC or Global Foundries to build them. The margins tend to be pretty thin (we're talking chips that are in the single digits for cost), so saving a little money on IP licensing is attractive. Since these are often custom applications, binary compatibility is less of an issue. That seems like a more interesting market for an open ISA and open core processors. [1] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/beff6e56-53ed-11e4-80db-00144feab7de.html#axzz3wFGbKjgu http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/beff6e56-53ed-11e4-80db-00144feab7... [2] https://atlas.qz.com/charts/Ek18VmbP https://atlas.qz.com/charts/Ek18VmbP [3] http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0509/technology-mips-sandeep-vij-dvd-micro-chips-less-more.html http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0509/technology-mips-sande...