ARM's Got Leverage in Intel Battle

Jim McGregor, Principal, Tirias Research
EETimes (11/19/2013 08:00 AM EST)

The battle between competing ARM and Intel architectures and ecosystems is reshaping the industry in many ways. Expectations are changing around form factors, programming models, costs, power budgets, and more.

For example, two ARM SoC vendors already offer their own server platforms -- AMD and Nvidia. As a result, some server OEMs likely will differentiate their products through vertical integration while others partner with select SoC vendors for customized solutions. I suspect Intel likely will follow one or both of these paths in the future.

The server segment is shaping up to be much more of a battle than anyone predicted, and that could have significant repercussions. I forecast ARM-based server solutions beginning in 2014 with the ARMv8 architecture. While the timing appears to correct, the battle for servers appears to be taking a turn I did not anticipate.

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