It would seem that, despite the ongoing rivalry between ARM and x86 CPU architectures, the architectures may lose importance as emphasis becomes stronger on the mobile applications and OS.
Based on the trends that can be seen on the IT market right now, it is assumed that, by 2014, about 75% of all mobile processors will have more than one core.
Four processing engines, for example, are quite adept at running various operating systems and applications on chips that could not do so previously.
Since even more than 75% of all chips are expected to feature integrated baseband, the processor architecture and instruction sets will gradually become less important.
As such, software makers will start to try and address all potential hardware platform, something already evident form how,
according to reports, Microsoft Itself is developing an ARM-ready OS.
Currently, ARM and x86 own the low and high-end markets, but there are other architectures in play as well, like SH and MIPS.
All in all, over the next four years, price, power and performance will become the real things to watch out for, since the inter-architecture war will lead to improvements on all sides.
“ARM will dominate in the handsets and high-end handheld solutions like tablets and e-readers; the x86 architecture, primarily Intel at this point, will dominate in the PC-like solutions ranging from netbooks up through traditional notebooks,” said Jim McGregor, chief technology analyst at In-Stat.
“MIPS will continue to dominate in the limited-function handheld solutions; and SH will continue to have its market niches in the Japanese device market,” he added.
“There are likely to be many moves by both start-ups and existing companies, such as the ASIC, MCU, and connectivity vendors to expand into the mobile processor market through internal growth and acquisitions," Mr. McGregor went on to saying.
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