FTC-Intel Case May Prove Favorable for ARM Chips

NVIDIA isn't the only one rejoicing over the Federal Trade Commission's legal actions taken against Intel a short while ago. The possibility of Intel's practices eventually being restricted seems to provide new expansion possibilities for other existing technologies, one of which is the ARM processor architecture.

Currently, processors based on the ARM architecture cannot be used in anything besides simple handheld devices because of their low performance capabilities compared to other chips, especially Intel's Atom CPUs, and also because they are not supported by the Windows operating systems.

Even with this incompatibility aside, ARM chips are still totally outmatched by the competition from Intel and AMD, making it quite impossible for the architecture to gain a foothold in netbook and smartbook markets based on low power consumption alone. Still, depending on the FTC-Intel case outcome, said markets might just become accessible to power-efficient processors.

"Intel's position in the netbook market is already threatened by the low power consumption and connectivity capabilities of ARM processors. If successful, these actions by the FTC would make it that much easier for ARM to extend its lead in mobile devices,” said Kevin Burden, director of ABI Research's mobile devices practice.

ARM chips are currently being used in 98% of all devices on the handset market and perform very well in mobile phones, smarphones and personal digital assistants. According to Digitimes, ABI Research actually sees a high chance of ARM chips being used in netbooks as early as next year.

"ARM-based processors are the leading architecture powering mobile phones and while Atom has had early success in the netbook segment, ARM-based processors are positioned to capture a growing, and possibly a significant share of new netbook models in the coming year," added Mr. Burden.

Still, even though this prediction is rather optimistic, ARM has yet to show notable benefits when used in products larger than handheld devices.