anonymous (no@email.org) on 1/13/11 wrote:
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>Linus Torvalds (torvalds@linux-foundation.org) on 1/12/11 wrote:
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>
>>The things is, x86 is targeting cellphones.
>
>And what about your "things grow up (rather than down)" model?

.. and that is why I'm willing to believe that ARM will
take over.

Growing down really is very hard. I think Intel has done
a very bad job at Atom - especially since it's very clear
that the low-power threat from ARM is a pretty serious
long-term threat.

And despite that real ARM threat, Atom isn't getting a
whole lot of tender loving care. Where is the "tick tock"
model when it comes to Atom? It's been getting just the
tick, as far as I can tell. Where are the architectural
improvements?

And I do think that part of why Intel hasn't been doing
a good job at Atom is exactly that "it's much easier
to grow up than to grow down" thing. I doubt a lot of
serious CPU architect brainpower is spent on Atom - simply
because it's not "sexy" to grow down.

Now, I really don't have any inside information, so this
is pure speculation, but looking at Sandybridge and looking
at Atom, I get the rather strong feeling that one of them
had a great honking team of A-class engineers on it and got
attention from every management level.

And the other has had a small group of (probably smart, but
still) people on it. Nothing like the Core "generation
whatever" teams.

And if Intel continues that, then I do think that ARM
will grow up faster than x86 will grow down. Sure, Intel
has the process advantage, but that's simply not nearly
enough.

And yes, it may be impossible to get over the problem of
"growing down is hard".

And Intel may already have lost. ARM was always strong in
cellphones, but the historic cellphone market used to be a
throw-away model - even for smartphones. There was almost
no infrastructure ("baggage") to drag along.

These days, both iOS and Android have a fair amount of ARM
baggage even outside the phone itself (ie native code on
the App Stores) that makes it harder for x86 to break in
even if intel gets its act together.

Linus