5 ms·

Is there a good telling of why ARM won in the embedded space? I "assume" it is related to power consumption, but I didn't actually follow this very closely.

jonplackett 5y ago
Probably cost too. Intel had a big profit margin on their chips.
cultofmetatron 5y ago
I recall a story about someone is arm's early days testing the chip and finding that it was workign normally was shocked when he saw the power wasn't actually going into it. excess power bleed going to it from other parts was providing all the energy it needed.
- naikrovek 5y ago
  I've heard this, too. I don't know if it's true, but it is feasible.
- Hublium 5y ago
  Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jOJl8gRPyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jOJl8gRPyQ
protomyth 5y ago
Intel loved big profits (note the lack of an under $300 market for much of the WinTel years), and MIPS was just a confusing mess with SGI.
cptskippy 5y ago
I have not read anything but here's my understanding... Hot off their success in the 80s with the desktop market, in the 90s Intel decided to go up market and target workstations, datacenter, and mainframes. They launched the P6 architecture with HPC in mind and eschewed power efficiency. By the mid/late 90s they didn't have an x86 product that could work well in the mobile space let alone the embedded space. The recognized that the laptop market was poised to explode and started work on Pentium M which eschewed their P6 derived Netburst architecture for something closer to the P5. ARM wisely chose not to compete with Intel and instead went for markets Intel wasn't in. This included mobile and embedded. At the time Intel was trying to optimize x86 for Laptops (Pentium M / Core), ARM was working down market from embedded to microcontrollers (ARM M). When Smartphones started to take off, ARM was positioned to be the processor of choice due to it's focus on low power and efficiency AND the fact that anyone could design their own SoC around it. Intel on the other hand was still trying to scale down x86 from the laptop space and chose to develop their SoCs entirely themselves. Intel also has this on going problem of eschewing SoCs for discrete chips because they want to sell you as many chips as possible. Fast forward to today and Intel's Atom line is comparable to ARM's high performance line (ignore Apple) in terms of performance and battery but it lacks the SoC integration you see in products from Qualcomm, Mediatek, and Samsung.
ksec 5y ago
It is the same reason with everything Intel for the past 10-20 years. Profits. And I have been ranting on it for most part of the last decade. Far too focused on profits. I mean Intel is still making record profits quarter after quarter. Embedded space are high volume low margin business, why waste their Wafer capacity for that? 4G Modem is a loss leader, why use latest node on it when they could be used for Server CPU at 100x the revenue and profits. Mobile SoC is also a high volume and low margin business, we cant use our most advance, industry leading fab for that. Let's partner with a Chinese companies and use contra revenue to gain market share. And oh, let's use TSMC because they are cheaper. ARM also has business model that doesn't make sense from Intel's perspective. Earning a measly xx cents per unit on IP? ( Yes Intel actually laughed about it in 00s era ) Did I mention XScale? And I could go on and rant about it for hours.....
PicassoCTs 5y ago
ARM being fabless first and pretty liberal with the licenses helped alot. Nobody feared to help there competitors when developing on arm.. they were as neutral as the swiss before they were acquired, and thats a great thing for embedded development projects.

jonplackett 5y ago

Probably cost too. Intel had a big profit margin on their chips.

cultofmetatron 5y ago

I recall a story about someone is arm's early days testing the chip and finding that it was workign normally was shocked when he saw the power wasn't actually going into it. excess power bleed going to it from other parts was providing all the energy it needed.

naikrovek 5y ago
I've heard this, too. I don't know if it's true, but it is feasible.
Hublium 5y ago
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jOJl8gRPyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jOJl8gRPyQ

protomyth 5y ago

Intel loved big profits (note the lack of an under $300 market for much of the WinTel years), and MIPS was just a confusing mess with SGI.

cptskippy 5y ago

I have not read anything but here's my understanding... Hot off their success in the 80s with the desktop market, in the 90s Intel decided to go up market and target workstations, datacenter, and mainframes. They launched the P6 architecture with HPC in mind and eschewed power efficiency. By the mid/late 90s they didn't have an x86 product that could work well in the mobile space let alone the embedded space. The recognized that the laptop market was poised to explode and started work on Pentium M which eschewed their P6 derived Netburst architecture for something closer to the P5. ARM wisely chose not to compete with Intel and instead went for markets Intel wasn't in. This included mobile and embedded. At the time Intel was trying to optimize x86 for Laptops (Pentium M / Core), ARM was working down market from embedded to microcontrollers (ARM M). When Smartphones started to take off, ARM was positioned to be the processor of choice due to it's focus on low power and efficiency AND the fact that anyone could design their own SoC around it. Intel on the other hand was still trying to scale down x86 from the laptop space and chose to develop their SoCs entirely themselves. Intel also has this on going problem of eschewing SoCs for discrete chips because they want to sell you as many chips as possible. Fast forward to today and Intel's Atom line is comparable to ARM's high performance line (ignore Apple) in terms of performance and battery but it lacks the SoC integration you see in products from Qualcomm, Mediatek, and Samsung.

ksec 5y ago

It is the same reason with everything Intel for the past 10-20 years. Profits. And I have been ranting on it for most part of the last decade. Far too focused on profits. I mean Intel is still making record profits quarter after quarter. Embedded space are high volume low margin business, why waste their Wafer capacity for that? 4G Modem is a loss leader, why use latest node on it when they could be used for Server CPU at 100x the revenue and profits. Mobile SoC is also a high volume and low margin business, we cant use our most advance, industry leading fab for that. Let's partner with a Chinese companies and use contra revenue to gain market share. And oh, let's use TSMC because they are cheaper. ARM also has business model that doesn't make sense from Intel's perspective. Earning a measly xx cents per unit on IP? ( Yes Intel actually laughed about it in 00s era ) Did I mention XScale? And I could go on and rant about it for hours.....

PicassoCTs 5y ago

ARM being fabless first and pretty liberal with the licenses helped alot. Nobody feared to help there competitors when developing on arm.. they were as neutral as the swiss before they were acquired, and thats a great thing for embedded development projects.