With what has happened in recent months, one of the things that is most talked about is ARM, either because of the transition of Apple processors or because of the purchase of NVIDIA. Suddenly the ARM register and instruction set has become the talk of all, to the point where it is said that Intel and ARM could abandon x86 processors. But to what extent is that feasible?
Intel and AMD have long dominated the market for PC processors, thanks to the fact that they have the exclusive power to manufacture CPUs capable of executing x86-64 code, but at the same time we do not stop reading and hearing that x86’s days are numbered and that even when the time comes, both Intel and AMD could go 100% ARM.
Why is there so much talk about ARM lately?
Due to two events that have occurred this year, on the one hand the fact that Apple has stopped using Intel x86 processors for its Macintosh computers to create its own processors, based on the ARM set of registers and instructions. The second reason has been for the purchase of ARM Holdings by NVIDIA, both events have put ARM in the front row of the news.
A market too crowded for the taste of Intel and AMD
ARM’s business model is to license its processors so that others can make clones of them or create technology compatible with them, in exchange ARM Holdings takes a small royalty for the rights to use the technology.
Intel and AMD, on the other hand, have the exclusive use of the whole of the x86-64 ISA, through a series of crossed patents between both companies, they enjoy an agreed oligopoly in which if you want to be able to execute a program compiled in x86- binary 64 you are going to need to use a processor from these two brands, this causes a lack of price competition that keeps the prices of these processors high.
If Intel and AMD entered the ARM market then there would be more to spread the cake, which means price competition and less profit for them.
So why is there talk of the end of x86?
The answer is very simple: outright propaganda to justify Apple’s jump to its own processors.
Apple has abandoned the x86 processors, not because they are bad processors as they try to sell out there continuously, but because of the fact that Apple is not willing to pay the high margins that Intel and AMD take for their processors.
The two ARM ecosystems in the domestic market
Due to the high profits that Intel and AMD have, they can create extremely complex architecture, on the other hand, in the ARM world most participants do not raise enough capital to enter a trade war to the same degree as the x86 market,
It is true that certain companies invest a large amount of research and development, not for the computation of the ARM ecosystem, but for their own use in their products. If we look at brands such as Apple, Qualcomm, NVIDIA and many others that are in the sector, we will see that their contribution to the ARM ecosystem globally is zero.
That is, two ARM ecosystems must be differentiated. The first of these is the one in which small companies license IPs from ARM Holdings and sell products with very low margins, which prevents them from creating their own processors. The second ecosystem is in which companies like Qualcomm, Apple and others participate that create their own SoCs and technologies that are compatible with the ARM ISA, but are not licensed products of ARM Holdings.
The niche data center market could abandon x86
The reason we use an x86 CPU in our home computers of whatever type is because we need to be able to run the programs.
But in certain environments there is no such dependence on x86, especially in environments in which the software used is developed for a specific application. This is where cost savings through Linux distributions and processors with ISA ARM take center stage, since its users do not have a problem abandoning the use of x86 processors since their software does not depend on them.
Both AMD and Intel know that the domestic PC market will never be replaced by ARM, but what they do care about are companies that have dedicated themselves to making ARM processor designs not for smartphones or low-power devices, but for powerful and powerful data centers.
Abandon x86 software, something that has never worked
The problem that Intel and AMD would face would be that a large number of programs would suddenly be ARM compatible and could be used on a large number of processors, this would in theory make people switch to ARM. Of course, it turns out that the milkmaid fell and with it the milk jug broke and the whole house of cards in the air disappeared.
On PCs where we are used to using Windows, we would find that we would have to transfer all the programs from x86 to ARM, something that has been tried and has not worked out very well and we have evidence of Microsoft‘s attempt to abandon x86 for ARM .
The thing is not as simple as putting a PC with ARM, the thing is that people want to continue to be able to use their programs.
At the beginning of the 90s, when the first versions of Windows NT appeared, there was one for each processor architecture, by the next version the vast majority had disappeared due to disuse and by the third version everything was exclusively x86-64. The lack of PC software running under ARM is what causes the transition to never run.
Intel and AMD have no reason to abandon x86
The answer is obvious, for Intel and AMD they have no incentive to abandon the x86 processors, as this would break the duopoly they have and which allows them large margins and profits.
So contrary to what many say, we are going to have x86 for a while, since there is no incentive at the technical, economic and software level that forces a transition to ARM as far as the PC market is concerned.
