6 ms·

> Frankly, unless ARM does radically change their business model, I do not expect them to survive. Survive what? I don't see RISC-V disrupting much of ARM's bi

> Frankly, unless ARM does radically change their business model, I do not expect them to survive. Survive what? I don't see RISC-V disrupting much of ARM's bigger-named business (eg, phones, with some inroads into other things like Apple Silicon & laptops). Maybe Amazon pivots into RISC-V for the next Graviton? But that also seems unlikely unless someone with very deep pockets invests in making an actually competitive RISC-V CPU core at the mid/high end. ARM's low-end market seems likely to be taken over by RISC-V. So like the Cortex M series days seem numbered without a change in the business model. But that seems like about it.

webmaven 5y ago
> ARM's low-end market seems likely to be taken over by RISC-V. So like the Cortex M series days seem numbered without a change in the business model. But that seems like about it. Doesn't that inevitably set up a classic Innovator's Dilemma?
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  I don't think so. ARM may just not care about losing that market. The CPUs they design at that ultra-low-end really don't carry over into the mid & high ends, which is where the high profile design wins & "high" (relatively) margins are anyway. Like what makes for a good hard drive controller doesn't really have anything at all to do with what makes a good smartphone CPU. So RISC-V winning at hard drive controllers or other (tiny) embedded usages is not really setting up an "S" curve for explosion here to challenge ARM's markets. They are really fundamentally different markets & products. Kinda like how Intel just never cared about going after embedded, and they're not exactly struggling as a result of that. With the big asterisk of smartphones where scaling up proved a quicker path to shipping than scaling down, at which point inertia took over, but for that to repeat would require a currently unknown new product category.
  - webmaven 5y ago
    I'd bet on AR glasses that somehow need to squeeze the compute power of a midrange cellphone into the form factor of a pair of glasses.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Survive what? I don't see RISC-V disrupting much of ARM's bigger-named business (eg, phones, with some inroads into other things like Apple Silicon & laptops). Go back a decade or so: how many people thought that ARM could compete against Intel/AMD?
- uxp100 5y ago
  A decade ago Microsoft was releasing ARM based laptops (or laptop like tablets if you insist). They were slow as hell Tegra 3 disappointments, but it was happening 10 years ago.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  ARM still isn't really competing against Intel/AMD. It took an entirely new form factory that radically changed the consumer landscape for ARM to get a foothold at all. What is RISC-V's smartphone explosion? ARM has so far, outside of Apple and very limited cloud experiements (and some very badly received laptop experiments), not really put a dent in Intel/AMD's markets. But all of this was fueled by the once-in-a-generation explosion that gave ARM untold increases in adoption "for free". RISC-V has seemingly nothing similar, and RISC-V itself certainly isn't manufacturing any such radical shift.
  - burnoutgal 5y ago
    Graviton2 is generally available and depending on your codebase and dependencies can be a drop-in replacement. I was amazed at the breadth of ARM docker images that exist for common use cases.
  - mekster 5y ago
    Umm, ARM has the share in the phone market where Intel/ AMD couldn't make a dent... It's a matter of time other shares will be eaten when x86 is having hard time innovating over its decades old design. More battery time for consumers laptop and less electricity bill for cloud vendors are something very attractive.
    - 5y ago
wongarsu 5y ago
Their phone business is probably safe for now, but as you said they are set to lose a lot of their embedded business. The stuff that powers your HDD, your fridge, your IoT devices. Lots of high volume use cases
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
IDK about Cortex M being soon overtaken by RISCV. There is a huge discussion about peripherals and IP. You can buy peripherals for ARM all day long, they’ll work from one chip to another for the most part. Once everyone can “make their own CPU”, expect fragmentation in the peripheral interfaces. I think low end cortex A and R are where V will shine first. Something like a CISCO IP phone, not an iPhone.

webmaven 5y ago

> ARM's low-end market seems likely to be taken over by RISC-V. So like the Cortex M series days seem numbered without a change in the business model. But that seems like about it. Doesn't that inevitably set up a classic Innovator's Dilemma?

kllrnohj 5y ago
I don't think so. ARM may just not care about losing that market. The CPUs they design at that ultra-low-end really don't carry over into the mid & high ends, which is where the high profile design wins & "high" (relatively) margins are anyway. Like what makes for a good hard drive controller doesn't really have anything at all to do with what makes a good smartphone CPU. So RISC-V winning at hard drive controllers or other (tiny) embedded usages is not really setting up an "S" curve for explosion here to challenge ARM's markets. They are really fundamentally different markets & products. Kinda like how Intel just never cared about going after embedded, and they're not exactly struggling as a result of that. With the big asterisk of smartphones where scaling up proved a quicker path to shipping than scaling down, at which point inertia took over, but for that to repeat would require a currently unknown new product category.
- webmaven 5y ago
  I'd bet on AR glasses that somehow need to squeeze the compute power of a midrange cellphone into the form factor of a pair of glasses.

throw0101a 5y ago

> Survive what? I don't see RISC-V disrupting much of ARM's bigger-named business (eg, phones, with some inroads into other things like Apple Silicon & laptops). Go back a decade or so: how many people thought that ARM could compete against Intel/AMD?

uxp100 5y ago
A decade ago Microsoft was releasing ARM based laptops (or laptop like tablets if you insist). They were slow as hell Tegra 3 disappointments, but it was happening 10 years ago.
kllrnohj 5y ago
ARM still isn't really competing against Intel/AMD. It took an entirely new form factory that radically changed the consumer landscape for ARM to get a foothold at all. What is RISC-V's smartphone explosion? ARM has so far, outside of Apple and very limited cloud experiements (and some very badly received laptop experiments), not really put a dent in Intel/AMD's markets. But all of this was fueled by the once-in-a-generation explosion that gave ARM untold increases in adoption "for free". RISC-V has seemingly nothing similar, and RISC-V itself certainly isn't manufacturing any such radical shift.
- burnoutgal 5y ago
  Graviton2 is generally available and depending on your codebase and dependencies can be a drop-in replacement. I was amazed at the breadth of ARM docker images that exist for common use cases.
- mekster 5y ago
  Umm, ARM has the share in the phone market where Intel/ AMD couldn't make a dent... It's a matter of time other shares will be eaten when x86 is having hard time innovating over its decades old design. More battery time for consumers laptop and less electricity bill for cloud vendors are something very attractive.
  - 5y ago

wongarsu 5y ago

Their phone business is probably safe for now, but as you said they are set to lose a lot of their embedded business. The stuff that powers your HDD, your fridge, your IoT devices. Lots of high volume use cases

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

IDK about Cortex M being soon overtaken by RISCV. There is a huge discussion about peripherals and IP. You can buy peripherals for ARM all day long, they’ll work from one chip to another for the most part. Once everyone can “make their own CPU”, expect fragmentation in the peripheral interfaces. I think low end cortex A and R are where V will shine first. Something like a CISCO IP phone, not an iPhone.