Showing posts with label ARM-based. Show all posts
Perhaps this will succeed where Windows RT failed.
Microsoft dipped its toe in the ARM waters with Windows RT but it ultimately proved a failure, primarily because of the lack of applications. That doesn't mean the company is going to give up on the dominant mobile market processor, however.
At the WinHEC show in China last week, Microsoft announced it has finally created a native version of Windows 10 running on Qualcomm Snapdragon processors with full x86 compatibility. This isn't Windows RT, it's full Windows 10, but you’ll be able to run Win32 apps and Windows Universal Apps.
The initial version of ARM Windows 10 only supports 32-bit apps, but that's not a big deal since most mobile devices have 4GB of memory or less anyway. And it should be noted this is Windows 10 on Snapdragon, not Windows 10 on ARM. Sure, Qualcomm's processors are fairly ubiquitous but they aren't everywhere. You won't be running Windows 10 on an iPad any time soon.
This enables Microsoft to get down into the lower-cost mobile market. The Surface tablets and notebooks are nice but they aren't cheap. That's partly due to being essentially x86 PCs. An ARM-based tablet has an overall lower cost of materials and lower price, so it gets Windows into places Microsoft currently isn't playing with the Surface line.
"For the first time ever, our customers will be able to experience the Windows they know with all the apps, peripherals, and enterprise capabilities they require, on a truly mobile, power efficient, always-connected cellular PC," said Windows chief Terry Myerson in a blog post announcing the breakthrough, along with other WinHEC news.
"With Windows 10 on cellular PCs, we will help everyone make the most of the air around them. We look forward to seeing these new devices with integrated cellular connectivity and the great experiences people love like touch, pen and Windows Hello, in market as early as next year," he added.
PCWorld (a sister publication of Computerworld) reports that the emulation will be built around a new, unreleased chip the Snapdragon 835 that's in production now and is due to ship in the first half of 2017, according to Qualcomm. The first Windows-on-ARM devices are expected by the second half of next year.
This will be a major challenge for Qualcomm. Emulation is always tricky business. Remember Transmeta? The difference here is Intel has basically given up on the mobile market. It bailed out of the tablet and smartphone business last year, basically handing it to ARM. So at least they don't have to deal with Intel on the hardware side.
But Qualcomm still faces a considerable challenge of ARM-to-x86 emulation. We don't know anything on the performance specs of the 835, only that it's a 10nm part.
Microsoft has announced a partnership with Qualcomm to bring Windows 10 - real Windows 10, not the aborted cut-down version formerly known as Windows RT - to the company's ARM processors.
Microsoft's previous attempts at playing with non-x86/AMD64 platforms have not exactly set the world aflame. The company has long offered an embedded Windows release which supports ARM and other non-x86/AMD64 architectures, and recently made that available to a wider audience under the moniker Windows 10 IoT Core. Although Windows 10 IoT Core does indeed run on ARM-based devices, in particular the popular Raspberry Pi single-board computer, it's not Windows as most users would know it; instead it's a cut-down operating system designed to run a single application at a time, and built with the intention of winning over embedded developers from Linux and other non-Windows kernels to the Windows ecosystem.
The closest Microsoft has ever come to a true release of a consumer-centric Windows version on ARM was Windows RT, launched alongside Windows 8 on Microsoft's Surface family of tablets. While one or two hardware partners licensed Windows RT, it was soon abandoned by both third parties and Microsoft itself: Microsoft confirmed in 2015 that Windows RT would not be updated to a Windows 10-based version, and sank the final nail into its coffin a few months later by leaving Windows RT out of its so-called 'Universal' Windows Platform.
Now, though, Microsoft is having another crack of the whip, and it's convinced Qualcomm to come along for the ride. Devices built around Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon processors will, the companies have jointly announced, be able to run Windows 10 - and this time it's truly the same release of Windows you'd find on an x86/AMD64 device. Not only will it run Windows 10, mind you, but also Windows 10's considerable ecosystem of applications - including those compiled exclusively for Win32 under the x86 architecture and the Universal Windows Platform.
'To deliver on our customers' growing needs to create on the go, we announced today that Windows 10 is coming to ARM through our partnership with Qualcomm,' explained Microsoft's Terry Myerson in a blog post late last night. 'For the first time ever, our customers will be able to experience the Windows they know with all the apps, peripherals, and enterprise capabilities they require, on a truly mobile, power efficient, always-connected cellular PC.'
Technical details of how the system will work have not yet been released, but the secret lies in emulation: a translation engine will take the x86/AMD64 instructions from the operating system and the software it's hosting and translate them into ARM instructions for the host processor. It's a tried-and-tested approach which gave machines like the Acorn Archimedes and Commodore Amiga basic x86 support in the 1980s and 1990s, though one which typically comes with a considerable performance hit - something for which Qualcomm's latest chips, it is to be hoped, can compensate.
A video demonstrating Windows 10 and Adobe Photoshop running on an ARM-based device is reproduced below, with Qualcomm and Microsoft promising to launch the first units some time next year.
It looks like Intel (NSDQ:INTC) has finally realized the potential of ARM
(NSDQ:ARMH) business prospects. The chipzilla entered into a licensing
agreement with ARM last week, which allows it to manufacture ARM-based mobile
SoCs for fabless chipmakers such as Qualcomm, Apple and Nvidia. The move would
combine Intel’s industry-leading chip fabrication processes with ARM’s highly
efficient mobile designs, and the joint synergies could potentially shake up
the entire semiconductor industry. Let’s take a closer look to have a better
understanding of it all.
- Intel recently struck a licensing agreement with ARM to manufacture its chips.
- The Move could boost Intel's revenues significantly.
- It could also bring upon a cash crunch on Intel's competitors, that could ultimately slow down their rate of progression.
Welcoming
ARM, with arms wide open
Let
me start by saying that Intel has had the world’s most advanced chip
fabrication technologies for several years now. It’s manufacturing lead was as
long as 18 months, back in 2014 and the chipzilla is expected to still stay
ahead of its peers (Taiwan Semiconductor, GlobalFoundries and Samsung) at least
up till 2018. Intel’s competitors were thriving till date due to increasing
business from ARM, but now that Intel has entered the scene with similar
intentions, the bulk of this business would pretty much go to the chipzilla due
to its manufacturing lead. After all, in the cut throat semiconductor industry,
everyone would want their performance chips to be manufactured on the latest
nodes.
2015 Rank
|
2014 Rank
|
Vendor
|
2015 Revenue
|
2015 Market Share (%)
|
2014 Revenue
|
2015-2014 Growth (%)
|
1
|
1
|
TSMC1
|
26,566
|
54.3
|
25,175
|
5.5
|
2
|
3
|
Globalfoundries2
|
4,673
|
9.6
|
4,400
|
6.2
|
3
|
2
|
UMC3
|
4,561
|
9.3
|
4,621
|
-1.3
|
4
|
4
|
Samsung Electronics4
|
2,607
|
5.3
|
2,412
|
8.1
|
5
|
5
|
SMIC
|
2,229
|
4.6
|
1,970
|
13.1
|
6
|
6
|
Powerchip Technology5
|
985
|
2
|
917
|
7.4
|
7
|
7
|
TowerJazz
|
961
|
2
|
828
|
16.1
|
8
|
10
|
Fujitsu Semiconductor
|
845
|
1.7
|
653
|
29.4
|
9
|
8
|
Vanguard International
|
736
|
1.5
|
790
|
-6.9
|
10
|
9
|
Shanghai Huahong Grace Semiconductor
|
651
|
1.3
|
665
|
-2
|
Top 10 for 2015
|
44,814
|
91.7
|
42,431
|
5.6
|
||
Others
|
4,077
|
8.3
|
4,281
|
-7
|
||
Total Market
|
48,891
|
100
|
46,812
|
4.4
|
·
- The global semiconductor foundry
business is estimated to be around $48.8 billion in
size. If Intel manages to slice up even 10% of this market, which shouldn’t be
that hard since it currently has the world’s most-advanced chip fabrication
technologies, its incremental revenues could be to the tune of $4.8 billion.
That’s a significant bump in its top-line, representing an increase of about
8.7% over its FY15 revenue. So its needless to say that Intel would be
opening a big revenue stream with this move. Intel can later use this
additional cash flow to fund its race to global 5G domination.
· -
More to the point, the semiconductor
industry requires billions of spending each year, earmarked towards improving
manufacturing technologies. If Intel manages to take away a sizable market
share from Taiwan Semiconductor and GlobalFoundries, then the their constrained
cash flows could hamper their R&D and capex spending, and ultimately result
in their growth slowdown. So the move to manufacture ARM chips not only serves
as an incremental revenue driver for Intel, but also limits the growth of its
foundry competitors. Talk about taking down two targets with one blow.
·
- Also, once Intel starts manufacturing
ARM-based chips, its factory utilization rate and production volumes would
increase. This should allow the chipmaker to attain better economies of scale,
improve its manufacturing efficiency and at the end of the day, it would become
easier for Intel to keep its fabs busy with the onset of this deal. Its foundry
operations for ARM-based chipmakers would act as a hedge against the slowing
down PC sales. These benefits should translate into better gross margins.
·
- And lastly, the move allows Intel to
capitalize on the mobile opportunity, while it still can. The chipzilla won’t
have to design its own Atom chips for mobile devices anymore in order to tap
the smartphone/tablet segment. So Intel would now be able to cater to the
mobile market, without having to invest billions in contra revenue or
mobile-related R&D spending. I believe that this is a low-risk, high-reward
opportunity for Intel and its shareholders.
Tempering excitement
Just like any other business move,
this one brings its own set of challenges and limitations as well.
· -
First of all, Intel won’t be a
chipmaker like Qualcomm, Apple or Nvidia. It will just be a foundry catering to
other fabless firms. This pretty much means that Intel’s revenue would be
limited to its production volume, regardless of how profitable or popular those
chips become. So its revenue stream could end up being as volatile and seasonal
as Micron’s.
·
- Secondly, if Intel continues in this
direction, it might also end up opening its foundry business to ARM-based
server chipmakers such as Cavium, AMD and Qualcomm. This may prove to be a
death knell for Intel’s highly profitable x86 server business. It could fuel
the growth of ARM servers and there’s a solid chance that they’d end up
cannibalizing Intel’s Xeon sales. So Intel must not head in this direction.
·
- More to the point, Intel’s excess
fabs aren’t running 10nm processes. Manufacturing 10nm chips on large scale
volume by 2018 would require a lot of retooling on Intel’s part. This would
most certainly bump up chipzilla’s capital expenditures over the next few
years, without providing any sort of guarantee that fabless chipmakers would
pick Intel for their manufacturing needs.
Putting it all together
Intel finally realized that other
foundries are its competitors as well. If the chipzilla succeeds in taking
business away from them, it would bring upon a cash crunch and ultimately slow
down the rate of progress of competition. So the move not only stands to boost
Intel’s revenues, but can also potentially impede the growth of its
competition. I see this as an excellent business move forward for Intel and its
shareholders.
