Computer-The inside story

Intel is known for its X86 microprocessors which are used in nearly 83% of the workstations.

Undoubtedly, Intel leads the market in chip manufacture for workstations. But, Intel has always worked on improving the clock speed of the chips, never really considering power efficiency as a base for improvement in its existing chip designs.

It lags behind in power efficiency, which is an absolute requisite in mobile computing i.e. Tablets and Smartphones

Here, I bring ARM holdings into the picture.

The ARM architecture, not very different from the Intel X86 Architecture by Intel, was developed by the ARM holdings. But, contrary to the Intel approach, ARM applied the "Bottom to Top" approach where it improved on the chips power efficiency first and then worked on the clock speed in its subsequent designs.

The Result: Power efficient chips with increasing clock speed.

Hence, with the sudden maturation in mobile computing and a need for far more power efficiency, ARM has found a new place for itself in the industry.

The evidence can be found in the fact that ARM licenses its architecture to chip makers such as Apple, Texas instruments and Qualcomm for making chips. Nearly 98% of the chips made for Smartphones and tablets are based on ARM architecture.

Moreover, Intel now faces direct competition from ARM in the making of workstations as well, with many hardware manufactures inducting ARM based microprocessors in their notebooks over the Intel based Atom processors, which have been found to be below par.

With Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announcing that the latest version of Windows NT family (windows 8 will support ARM- CPUs, Intel has more than one reason to fret.

In a bid to salvage some ground ,Intel plans to induct its Medfield platform ( Atom family based) into Smartphones and tablets . Both Motorola and Lenovo would be bringing in x86 Android smartphones this year. Motorola has already signed an extensive “multi-year, multi-device strategic partnership” with Intel to produce Android-powered smartphones and tablets.  

Intel hopes to reinvigorate the PC market and protect itself against rising competition from tablet computers with a host of ultra-books, that were displayed at the CES this year. Ultra books are thin and light notebooks running on the latest ivy bridge processors. As claimed by Intel the processor has a 20% increase in CPU performance over its predecessor.

ARM on the other hand is all set to invade the large server territory with NVIDIA rolling out to a new ARM based chip (Project Denver).

With Intel being attacked on all three fronts, and as the world demands more compute at lower energy levels, the question to be asked is-

"Does the wounded horse have it in him to survive the hurricane, coming to put an end to its misery?"