Revisited: Question of the Month: Which processor architecture will dominate the market in a decade?

e14 Question of the Month

Embedded hardware and computing has changed a great deal within the last 10 years, and with the latest hardware revisions, Moore's law being contested, and the rise of mobile computing. Embedded software and hardware architectures are really in flux. We are not even commenting on the attempted purchase of Arm ltd or what graphical processing units those system on a chips will use in the future!

Now, imagine that you are ten years into the future. Which embedded processor architecture will command the market: the status quo or something not yet discovered? Will it be NVIDIA with their artificial intelligence focused processors?

Take our poll and let us know which architecture you think will dominate embedded engineering in a decade, and if you disagree with the options presented, please tell us why in the Comments section below!

Top Replies

dougw over 2 years ago

Apple M2 (Mx) might also be in the discussion because embedded applications need high performance per watt.

In 10 years all major players will have significant new offerings which are driven by competition amongst the contenders. It doesn't seem likely any will adopt a whole new architecture in that time.

High end embedded architectures will include AI infrastructure.

It is good to see more contenders pushing the boundaries trying to leapfrog the competition.

I expect ARM and Intel to respond to Apple and RISC-V.

If ARM does respond, their business model will likely prevail in the embedded space. If they fail, RISC-V is hungry to increase market share. Intel could go after the embedded market, but it isn't clear if they will. If Apple continues to try and go it alone, they won't dominate the space.
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colporteur over 2 years ago

Can FPGA's be slipped in as a response to this question?
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dougw over 2 years ago in reply to colporteur

FPGAs can include ARM or RISC-V. Were you thinking of a different processor core?
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colporteur over 2 years ago in reply to dougw

No ,the underlying cores not with standing. What is happening in this space is profound.
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shabaz over 2 years ago

Anyone read "Chip War" by Chris Miller?
It is a very, very high-level account of chip history, but it is written fairly recently so has a contemporary perspective.

Quite an interesting book and it contains an amount of stats/figures although nowhere near as much as I'd personally like. A very easy bedtime read that is not heavy-going. It doesn't just focus on processors, it covers all sorts of parts including memory.

That is my 3-sentence micro-review : )

(Image source: Amazon)
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DAB over 2 years ago

These technologies change so fast it is impossible to predict what innovation will dominate in ten years.
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md_steve over 1 year ago

If I could answer this, I would have bought Apple stock instead of Apple products.
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baldengineer over 1 year ago

My guess would be "something new." But then again, look how long Arm has been around and its position in the market today. That said, it seems there is a lot of buzz around RISC-V. Given the more open nature of the core, I could see either it sticking around for another decade OR evolving into something new that becomes dominate.

One thing is for sure: Arm needs to keep innovating or it will become the next Nokia of the technology world.
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bradfordmiller over 1 year ago in reply to colporteur

Agreed. The most popular architecture will be dynamically reconfigurable.
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michaelkellett over 1 year ago in reply to bradfordmiller

The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that FPGA will not be the dominant architecture. Despite their usefulness they typically use 10x the silicon to achieve a given result (compared with a one purpose device like a processor ).

I think we might see a more micros with a bit of FPGA added on the side.

MK
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