5 ms·

Since the transistors in chips are becoming smaller and smaller, heat is an increasing issue. This is why ARM chips for smartphones and IoT are booming, because

by whazor 10y ago

Since the transistors in chips are becoming smaller and smaller, heat is an increasing issue. This is why ARM chips for smartphones and IoT are booming, because their requirements of small chips are compatible with the shrinking size of the transistor. Now Intel tries to get a cut of the market, but they are too late. Anyway, I think they should keep focussing on making the computer chips and focus on the temperature problem.

mtgx 10y ago
Indeed. Intel's thinking right now (or rather in the past couple of years) seems to be that "hey, we missed the smartphone market, but at least we're early for the IoT market, right?" Except there are two things wrong with that theory: 1) "IoT" is mainly a new name for something that has already existed - a market that has already been dominated by ARM: the embedded/microcontroller market. ARM has much better expertise in this market, better relationships, and better ecosystem, as well as a full range of products. 2) If Intel's chips weren't competitive in the mobile market (especially when you compare all three metrics of performance, power, and price), then why would they be in the embedded IoT market, which plays even more to ARM's strengths?
- roymurdock 10y ago
  1) "IoT" is mainly a new name for something that has already existed - a market that has already been dominated by ARM: the embedded/microcontroller market. The IoT is much more than just the embedded hardware. It's the potential that lies within connecting embedded hardware. Extracting and refining data from embedded machines/sensors/nodes. The whole ecosystem of apps/services that can potentially be created on top of these new data streams.
  - phkahler 10y ago
    >> The whole ecosystem of apps/services that can potentially be created on top of these new data streams. I haven't seen any of that yet, just hype. Of course every company wants to collect more data on consumers and is hoping IoT will enable them. None has provided a compelling reason for a "consumer" to buy an IoT device. Look at how Nest was all hype and then had a thermostat fail at its primary function when it lost the net connection. That's a huge step backward, and it's not going to get any better when the data collection remains the priority.
    - roymurdock 10y ago
      Consumer-facing smarthome/wearable devices like Nest are a very small vertical sliver of a much larger market. Think industrial, automotive, medical, aerospace and defense. Check out platforms like GE Predix, PTC ThingWorx, AWS IoT, Azure IoT, etc. Industrial analytics/efficiency/optimization - that's where the big money is.
      - jonquark 10y ago
        I agree that consumer-facing IoT devices are a single vertical in a long list of verticals (many of which are more mature) but I really wanted to mention that IBM also has a platform in this space that was omitted from your list: Watson IoT. (Disclaimer: I work on the MessageSight messaging engine used in Watson IoT)
  - aylons 10y ago
    You're not wrong, but from the a hardware vendor perspective, grandparent is right: an IOT device is simply a embedded/microcontroller market. Maybe with a bit more emphasis on connectivity, but this is not new in any way.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - roymurdock 10y ago
      Agree on the definition of an "IoT device" but scoping that way misses most of the market opportunity. While the embedded/microcontroller tech hasn't changed drastically, the cloud/edge processing & analytics parts of the tech stack are new. The "services" business models are also new.
      - aylons 10y ago
        Again, I do not disagree with you. However, the hardware vendor (the one who sells the parts that will be used on these devices) still keeps selling about the same devices. And these are the kind of devices Intel has decided to overlook 15, 20 years ago and now ARM is eating its cake.
        minipci1321 10y ago
        Insisting on this vision would be missing a bit part, or even the entire core, of the new Intel strategy -- they plan to sell more Xeons to those additional data centers that would be required to process new IoT data.
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      > Maybe with a bit more emphasis on connectivity What makes it an even bigger ARM turf than otherwise.
valarauca1 10y ago
>Now Intel tries to get a cut of the market, but they are too late. It's really more complex then that. x86_64 has a lot of backwards compatibility. Even low power chips made by Intel typically consume 2-5x the wattage of ARM counter parts. Intel's very low power line (matches ARM) doesn't actually have the 64bit extension and is functionally a i586 chip from circa 1999-2003. Modern x86_64 chips have a whole section of die space dedicated to emulation, re-ordering, re-naming, and caching for us to pretend x86 is fast. Then you have monopoly. Intel is the only company making x86_64 chips (Yes VIA/AMD exist, but collectively they have <10% of the market). They are the only show in town, it's their prices. While ARM simply licenses it's IP to other companies, who then compete with one another and drive prices even lower.
- Vanayad 10y ago
  Actually AMD has around 20-30% marketshare...
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    I think you're right that it's more than 10, but I don't think it's much more than 20%. Q4 last year it was almost exactly 20% as part of a downward trend. There's a good chance it's somewhat below 20% right now.
- mariusmg 10y ago
  >for us to pretend x86 is fast. "Instruction sets" are not fast, the implementations are. Also AMD has a nice chunk of marketshare which will only get bigger once Zen is out.
  - astrange 10y ago
    Instruction sets can affect the speed of the decoder hardware, and how many instructions fit in the L1 cache, to speed up jumping around reading them from memory. Getting more register names in x86-64 was a huge boost too.
- StillBored 10y ago
Panoramix 10y ago
Transistors are not becoming much smaller. Moore's law is stagnating, due to a host of reasons. Multiple patterning is very expensive, EUV is not available - and even if it comes, it will be really expensive with a host of technical challenges for everyone. And then it will very quickly hit a wall as well. The future of computer chips is dim. I think Intel is smart to diversify into other markets.

by whazor 10y ago

mtgx 10y ago

Indeed. Intel's thinking right now (or rather in the past couple of years) seems to be that "hey, we missed the smartphone market, but at least we're early for the IoT market, right?" Except there are two things wrong with that theory: 1) "IoT" is mainly a new name for something that has already existed - a market that has already been dominated by ARM: the embedded/microcontroller market. ARM has much better expertise in this market, better relationships, and better ecosystem, as well as a full range of products. 2) If Intel's chips weren't competitive in the mobile market (especially when you compare all three metrics of performance, power, and price), then why would they be in the embedded IoT market, which plays even more to ARM's strengths?

roymurdock 10y ago
1) "IoT" is mainly a new name for something that has already existed - a market that has already been dominated by ARM: the embedded/microcontroller market. The IoT is much more than just the embedded hardware. It's the potential that lies within connecting embedded hardware. Extracting and refining data from embedded machines/sensors/nodes. The whole ecosystem of apps/services that can potentially be created on top of these new data streams.
- phkahler 10y ago
  >> The whole ecosystem of apps/services that can potentially be created on top of these new data streams. I haven't seen any of that yet, just hype. Of course every company wants to collect more data on consumers and is hoping IoT will enable them. None has provided a compelling reason for a "consumer" to buy an IoT device. Look at how Nest was all hype and then had a thermostat fail at its primary function when it lost the net connection. That's a huge step backward, and it's not going to get any better when the data collection remains the priority.
  - roymurdock 10y ago
    Consumer-facing smarthome/wearable devices like Nest are a very small vertical sliver of a much larger market. Think industrial, automotive, medical, aerospace and defense. Check out platforms like GE Predix, PTC ThingWorx, AWS IoT, Azure IoT, etc. Industrial analytics/efficiency/optimization - that's where the big money is.
    - jonquark 10y ago
      I agree that consumer-facing IoT devices are a single vertical in a long list of verticals (many of which are more mature) but I really wanted to mention that IBM also has a platform in this space that was omitted from your list: Watson IoT. (Disclaimer: I work on the MessageSight messaging engine used in Watson IoT)
- aylons 10y ago
  You're not wrong, but from the a hardware vendor perspective, grandparent is right: an IOT device is simply a embedded/microcontroller market. Maybe with a bit more emphasis on connectivity, but this is not new in any way.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - roymurdock 10y ago
    Agree on the definition of an "IoT device" but scoping that way misses most of the market opportunity. While the embedded/microcontroller tech hasn't changed drastically, the cloud/edge processing & analytics parts of the tech stack are new. The "services" business models are also new.
    - aylons 10y ago
      Again, I do not disagree with you. However, the hardware vendor (the one who sells the parts that will be used on these devices) still keeps selling about the same devices. And these are the kind of devices Intel has decided to overlook 15, 20 years ago and now ARM is eating its cake.
      - minipci1321 10y ago
        Insisting on this vision would be missing a bit part, or even the entire core, of the new Intel strategy -- they plan to sell more Xeons to those additional data centers that would be required to process new IoT data.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    > Maybe with a bit more emphasis on connectivity What makes it an even bigger ARM turf than otherwise.

valarauca1 10y ago

>Now Intel tries to get a cut of the market, but they are too late. It's really more complex then that. x86_64 has a lot of backwards compatibility. Even low power chips made by Intel typically consume 2-5x the wattage of ARM counter parts. Intel's very low power line (matches ARM) doesn't actually have the 64bit extension and is functionally a i586 chip from circa 1999-2003. Modern x86_64 chips have a whole section of die space dedicated to emulation, re-ordering, re-naming, and caching for us to pretend x86 is fast. Then you have monopoly. Intel is the only company making x86_64 chips (Yes VIA/AMD exist, but collectively they have <10% of the market). They are the only show in town, it's their prices. While ARM simply licenses it's IP to other companies, who then compete with one another and drive prices even lower.

Vanayad 10y ago
Actually AMD has around 20-30% marketshare...
- microcolonel 10y ago
  I think you're right that it's more than 10, but I don't think it's much more than 20%. Q4 last year it was almost exactly 20% as part of a downward trend. There's a good chance it's somewhat below 20% right now.
mariusmg 10y ago
>for us to pretend x86 is fast. "Instruction sets" are not fast, the implementations are. Also AMD has a nice chunk of marketshare which will only get bigger once Zen is out.
- astrange 10y ago
  Instruction sets can affect the speed of the decoder hardware, and how many instructions fit in the L1 cache, to speed up jumping around reading them from memory. Getting more register names in x86-64 was a huge boost too.
StillBored 10y ago

Panoramix 10y ago

Transistors are not becoming much smaller. Moore's law is stagnating, due to a host of reasons. Multiple patterning is very expensive, EUV is not available - and even if it comes, it will be really expensive with a host of technical challenges for everyone. And then it will very quickly hit a wall as well. The future of computer chips is dim. I think Intel is smart to diversify into other markets.