Journal 4, September 20

Your next laptop might be an ARM!

Osnews.com: ARM_Pushes_Envelope_with_New_Multicore_Chips

While you might initially think that Intel and AMD lead the computer processor market, if you stop to think about all the computers and not just desktops or laptops but also processors such as ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SH and a few others found in the embedded computer market is much you can easily see that embedded computers far out sell personal computers.

Embedded computers can be found in most electronic devices. Examples using the ARM processor include 98% of cellphones cellphones, game consoles (Gameboy color and newer models), PDAs, mp3 players (for instance my sansa e200 media player has an ARM cpu), and even calculators.

The ARM processor was originally designed for the Acorn RISC Machine computer but it was overtaken in the market by IBM compatibles and Apple computers. Since then ARM has become the most popular processor architectures in the embedded computer world selling around 90 processors a minute! The popularity of ARM processors in embedded devices is largly due to their power efficiency and not their speed since you don't need much number cruching on a cellphone instead battery life is more important. However recently ARM processors have made large strides in performance while maintaining low power requirements. Intel has also developed lower power usage processors found in PCs designed for web browsing or long mobile battery life. Intels processors are still no match for the ARM design which does not maintain as much backward compatibilty as intel's x86 which allows them to keep ARM processors highly power efficent. For instance instance Texas Insturments' OMAP3 ARM processor can boast; “during average operation the OMAP 3 processors draw only 25.6 mW, about 11 to 16 percent as much as the 160 to 220 mW required by the best x86 solution in similar conditions“ [1]. A yet to be released hand held computer called the Pandora uses the ARM Cortex-A8 single core cpu at 600Mhz by default and up to 900Mhz offering 10+ hours of web browsing or over well over 20 hours of mp3 playback.

In the topic article ARM has announced that it will release new 2Ghz multi core versions of its ARM Cortex-A9 design which will further widen the performance gap. ARM processors will then be fast enough to compete directly with Intel and AMD desktop processors while consuming comparable power to their mobile processors.

The impact it could have once ARM processors start showing up in laptops and perhaps media center computers is that people will realize that ARM processors will make good desktop processors as well. It could lead to an entire market shift from x86 to ARM processors if game companies take notice. The fact that many games and applications are already available for ARM Linux is sure to help. While you will probably lose compatibility with most of your purchased software if ARM becomes popular on the PC again some manufacturers would likely offer patches to get your software working on ARM or free alternatives could be found. For instance IBM has recently made it mandatory for all employees to switch to Symphony Office their modified version of the Open Office suite instead of using Microsoft's costly office suite. Another example is the K3B an excellent CD burning application available on Linux and BSD which has proven itself better than non free CD burning programs in my opinion.

I think that in general people would be blown away by what an multi core ARM computer is capable of. Already single core ARM processors have been shown to be capable of watching HD video. Enabling normal web browsing with Firefox, Midori ( Webkit browser like Apple's Safari) or Google Chrome. No more hot laptops burning your lap. Extreme battery life would be achievable with a large a battery 24 hours or more of battery life would be no problem. It might not be long at all until you can buy a new laptop in Walmart and Bestbuy running with a similar processor to the iPhone so look out Intel and AMD!

[1] http://focus.ti.com/pdfs/wtbu/ti_mid_whitepaper.pdf