How many CPUs do we need?

[Jay Goldberg]

Sometimes, the most important insight seem obvious once said. CPUs, the core chip for PCs and servers, were once the king of compute. This was just a given, a fundamental assumption of the semiconductor industry. In the distant past of 2013 only two companies made CPUs – Intel and AMD, with Intel by far the leader.

No one else could afford to make these big iron, ubiquitous chips. But in less than ten years, that entire mindset has been invalidated. By our count, there are over a dozen companies designing CPUs today, Intel's position in that space is no longer dominant and CPUs have fallen victim to the guillotine. The semiconductor world no longer has a king. Vive la République!

Obviously Intel and AMD still make CPUs, and to be fair, they remain the market share leaders. And even after Intel's very troubling past five years, they retain the #1 position in the market.

Editor's Note:
Guest author Jonathan Goldberg is the founder of D2D Advisory, a multi-functional consulting firm. Jonathan has developed growth strategies and alliances for companies in the mobile, networking, gaming, and software industries.

But here come the Arm companies. Qualcomm was arguably the first Arm CPU of any commercial scale, but it has taken them a long time to really productize that part. Along the way, several other companies made a run for the market, and failed.

Until Ampere came along, outlasting a handful of other startups to emerge as the largest merchant Arm CPU maker. They still face many challenges, but there is no arguing that they have real commercial traction and a strong roadmap. And of course, there's Nvidia's Grace CPU coming soon.

Less than a decade ago, CPUs were the dominant form of compute and everyone 'knew' the market could only support two vendors. Today, there are over a dozen companies making CPUs.

Then we have all the CPUs from the non-chip companies rolling their own CPUs. The best known of these is Apple's M Series, which by many metrics is the best PC CPU on the market right now. And then there are the hyperscalers, most notably Amazon's Graviton now in its third generation.

Alibaba has its Yi Tian CPU, which apparently is in production for its data centers. Beyond Arm, there are also at least two companies making RISC V-based CPUs, both in stealth (sort of), so we will not name them here.

And then there is China. We know three newish companies designing CPUs: Loongson, Zhaoxin and HJ Micro. Rockchip is still out there plugging away with CPUs for low-end devices. AMD theoretically still has a joint venture in China making CPUs, but their status is not great given the geopolitical tensions.

We would also add Huawei to this list. Their HiSilicon Kunpeng once looked very promising for the data center until they were crippled by US sanctions, but there are now rumors that Huawei is working with SMIC to build this again on a 14nm process. And we are almost certainly missing a handful of other startups working on CPUs in China.

Netting this all out we get the following list:

• Alibaba
• Amazon
• AMD
• Ampere
• Apple
• HJ Micro
• Huawei
• Intel
• Loongson
• Nvidia
• Qualcomm
• RISC V start-ups
• Rockchip
• Zhaoxin

This is a fairly dramatic shift to a massive market over a very short time frame. It is hard to overstate how alien this idea would have sounded only few years ago.

For over a decade it was a foregone conclusion that CPUs would be dominant and Intel the dominator. All of that is now turned on its head.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98510-how-many-cpus-do-need.html

 

[mbk34]

"In the distant past of 2013 only two companies made CPUs"
Statements like that make me feel quite old. I actually thought you were going to start in the late 1970's with the popular 6502 and 8080 processors but there were loads of companies (50?) that produced processors then.

 

[cristianm]

To be failr, in 2013 there were more than two cpu manufacturers. IBM with the power CPU, fujitsu was still producing some sort of SPARC64. Mobile phones already evolved to some mini computers, and there were a few arm cores and some arm V7 compatible custom cores created by Qualcomm and Apple. Also, I think it is not fair to count rockchip as a cpu designer because they do not make their own cores, they are a soc designer. Also, if you count nvidia as a cpu manufacturer today, then you can also add them to the 2013 list with the tegra, they were not custom cores, but I think they inovated with the 4+1 cores (all A9 but one was a low power optimized core). Zhaoxin was founded in 2013 as a joint venture with the the VIA of old times.
So, I guess, maybe we remember less from 2013, not that there were less manufacturers

 

[Uncle Al]

The fact of the matter is that the more companies involved, the greater the competition, which is great for the consumer. The only downside is knowing which to select .... but that's half the fun!

 

[ferrellsl]

During the 70's, 80's and 90's there were dozens of CPU manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Motorola, Cyrix, National Semiconductor, Siemens, Zilog, MOSTEK, ATMEL, etc. Some were absorbed by the likes of Intel or driven out of business for various reasons. Many of them are still in the semiconductor business but don't make CPUs anymore. Here's a comprehensive list of former and current manufacturers: https://www.cpushack.com/history.html

I miss those early days of tech because it was like the wild, wild west. There was always some start-up company coming from left field with a new chip design that would literally shake up the market with a new processor that had new and impressive features at an amazing price. Now all the current manufacturers want to talk about are power consumption and the next die shrink. With just 3 major players (Intel, AMD, and ARM) left in the marketplace there's a lack of competition that's needed to drive innovation forward. Computing was fun once, but for old-timers like me, those days ended about 2 decades ago.

 

[Nanochip]

There’s room for more than two companies. What has been great to see is the rise of arm in compute performance and now intel may build arm chips on 18A that’s crazy to think that intel would build chips for a rival ISA. Nonetheless, competition brings choice for consumers.

What we haven’t seen however is an alternative OS vendor. Microsoft is still dominant. Linux is doing great things but unlike several CPU vendors we’re mainly stuck with windows. We’re starting to see the rise of handheld gaming machines like the steam deck and ayaneo, and soon Asus ally. At least valve created a custom Linux build for gaming. But the windows experience on handhelds suck.

I’d argue that it would be nice to have viable alternatives to windows. Just like it’s nice to have viable alternatives to raptor lake’s power consumption, or zen4’s proclivity to go kaboom, or arm’s lower MT performance. Just my opinion. Thanks and good day.

 

[yRaz]

During the 70's, 80's and 90's there were dozens of CPU manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Motorola, Cyrix, National Semiconductor, Siemens, Zilog, MOSTEK, ATMEL, etc. Some were absorbed by the likes of Intel or driven out of business for various reasons. Many of them are still in the semiconductor business but don't make CPUs anymore. Here's a comprehensive list of former and current manufacturers: https://www.cpushack.com/history.html

I miss those early days of tech because it was like the wild, wild west. There was always some start-up company coming from left field with a new chip design that would literally shake up the market with a new processor that had new and impressive features at an amazing price. Now all the current manufacturers want to talk about are power consumption and the next die shrink. With just 3 major players (Intel, AMD, and ARM) left in the marketplace there's a lack of competition that's needed to drive innovation forward. Computing was fun once, but for old-timers like me, those days ended about 2 decades ago.

The early days in tech was so exciting. It felt like there was a major leap in performance every few months, it was impossible to keep up with everything! I feel like things really started to slow down around 2009-2010. We're seeing some really cool ARM chips now but it's been slow.

 

[Nanochip]

The early days in tech was so exciting. It felt like there was a major leap in performance every few months, it was impossible to keep up with everything! I feel like things really started to slow down around 2009-2010. We're seeing some really cool ARM chips now but it's been slow.

Remember matrox and voodoo and riva tnt? I remember when a cpu would come out and then in 6 months, it would be rendered obsolete by its replacement. The 1990s were amazing. Moore’s law was alive and well.

 

[yRaz]

Remember matrox and voodoo and riva tnt? I remember when a cpu would come out and then in 6 months, it would be rendered obsolete by its replacement. The 1990s were amazing. Moore’s law was alive and well.

I had no idea Matrox still existed but I just looked them up. I was a Voodoo guy until I switch to nVidia for a 6800GTS. Yes, I know that that is a long time betwen graphics cards...

but, man, what a time to be alive in tech. The 90s were awesome. Tiger direct still mailed out catalogs and tech conventions were still a thing. I remember my dad taking me to tech shows when I was a kid and they just had motherboards and hardware laid out everywhere.

I think my first complete build was an AMD K5 that ran at like 100mhz or something and I picked out all the hardware at a convention center.

 

[noel24]

I'm confused. Is This article about x86 chips? PC, mobile or server chips? Fab or fabless chips manufacturer? Zhaoxin is VIA? Where is Samsung, where is Mediatek?
Why is nVidia here? Other than Their own advertisement material, I cannot find any reviews. Links please.

 

[Timoo]

How many CPUs do we need?

Many more than we have today... ;-)

 

[tipstir]

VIA seems to be have been taken over or still around with their CPUs. I've had one PC running VIA 386SX Magnavox Desktop PC. Today I am using Intel and AMD along with Qualcomm MPU mobile processor units.

Right now I am AMD A4 Dual Core comes some neat stuff like Overclocking in Windows max is 3.4GHz. APU running at 2.80 GHz. I use third party freeware program called Quick CPU. You can change the way Windows runs CPU. This PC has Smart Gaming Mode feature. GPU HD on this is 4 cores. It's running Windows 11 Pro.
I just use this system for My Music Studio and for my YouTube Channels I run also. Works find for being just two cores.

Do we really need more cores where they're just based on 2 cores and 2 or more cores based on the first 2 cores. Single cores we already how they were. 2 cores came it was very fast. So they somehow advance tech on 2 cores to give 4 cores but really 2 cores acting like 4 cores. Apple has Hex core 6 cores seem to still be using that tech. Intel decided to go higher in cores most of the CPU was still 2 cores then some were 4 cores. Now I lost count. CPU GHz 32-bit / 64-bit. What they really need to change 128-bit/256-bit CPU change everything but that's if companies get off 32-bit API and start going for 64-bit API. What a lot of don't realize not much have change bus wise.

 

[mikeysteele]

In 2013 there were only 2 companies making CPUs? Who writes this junk?

 

[texasrattler]

Doesn't Samsung now make their own cpus for their phones, tablets n maybe tvs?

 

[amghwk]

Strangely, Samsung's Exynos is not mentioned in the article.

And elsewhere, looks like a poorly researched article.

And Apple's M CPU is the "best PC CPU on the market right now"?? I think I will dismiss that as the writer's opinion and not a fact.

 

[kinetix]

During the 70's, 80's and 90's there were dozens of CPU manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Motorola, Cyrix, National Semiconductor, Siemens, Zilog, MOSTEK, ATMEL, etc. Some were absorbed by the likes of Intel or driven out of business for various reasons. Many of them are still in the semiconductor business but don't make CPUs anymore. Here's a comprehensive list of former and current manufacturers: https://www.cpushack.com/history.html

I miss those early days of tech because it was like the wild, wild west. There was always some start-up company coming from left field with a new chip design that would literally shake up the market with a new processor that had new and impressive features at an amazing price. Now all the current manufacturers want to talk about are power consumption and the next die shrink. With just 3 major players (Intel, AMD, and ARM) left in the marketplace there's a lack of competition that's needed to drive innovation forward. Computing was fun once, but for old-timers like me, those days ended about 2 decades ago.

The 90s were the best for me. remember how despite the lack of plug and play many things from different manufacturers were "compatible" thanks to jumpers and dipswitches (IRQs and DMAs were bad anyways). I still remember how I OC my i486DX2 from 80 to 100 Mhz, then on the same board I changed it to an i486DX4 100Mhz, OCed to 120. the bad thing was that I had to use a VL-Bus+ISA card with the IDE and video interfaces (lots of problems did that card give!).
the motherboard die (a power regulator) but the next one (better) keep with the iDX4, latter changed to a Am486DX4 (oh! those times of physical and electrical compatibility between x86 cpus) of 120 Mhz that I OC to 133 mhz, and then, in the same board! I changed it for an Am5x86. the last was almost installing a Pentium Overdrive but it was already unnecessary because I went to the next motherboard with a 133mhz Pentium, I belive OCed to 150Mhz, which later became a 200MHz Pentium MMX, OC to 220mhz, or something like that.
and the DRAMs! form FP to EDO, and playing with the timmings!
or expanding the EXTERNAL cache.
One thing I loved back then was those AMI BIOSes, with a graphical interface and even mouse control.
man, I still have all the parts of this last PC. sometimes I want to put it all back in some box and make it work again.

 

[Frenchbeard]

I didn't see IBM. Most of the enterprise transactions still run on IBM Mainframes.

 

[Vanderlinde]

Thing is, you can do quite more with certain specialised CPU's then just X64 or X86 alone. For running a webserver for example you don't need X86; you can also do it on ARM and perhaps quite more efficient.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

To be failr, in 2013 there were more than two cpu manufacturers. IBM with the power CPU, fujitsu was still producing some sort of SPARC64. Mobile phones already evolved to some mini computers, and there were a few arm cores and some arm V7 compatible custom cores created by Qualcomm and Apple. Also, I think it is not fair to count rockchip as a cpu designer because they do not make their own cores, they are a soc designer. Also, if you count nvidia as a cpu manufacturer today, then you can also add them to the 2013 list with the tegra, they were not custom cores, but I think they inovated with the 4+1 cores (all A9 but one was a low power optimized core). Zhaoxin was founded in 2013 as a joint venture with the the VIA of old times.
So, I guess, maybe we remember less from 2013, not that there were less manufacturers

Agreed. This is the author confusing his recollection of ten years ago for history.

This how journalists always think a company was an “overnight success” when it was actually years in the making.

 

[m3tavision]

We need 9.... Number 9.

 

[waclark]

First, I would point out that some of those chip manufacturers will never see commercial success outside of China. And there are probably some in Russia too that won't be sold outside that country. Second, the article never really answers the question, but a short answer is we need more than Intel and AMD. There are many applications that require application specific processors and trying to build something around Intel/AMD is just not feasible.

And no mention of Texas Instruments?

 

[Hodor]

"In the distant past of 2019 nobody has ever heard of COVID..."

 

[LetTheWookieWin]

but, man, what a time to be alive in tech. The 90s were awesome.

Indeed they were. I used to pour over PC Magazine and Computer Shopper to read up on all of the latest trends and offerings. I bought my first PC (that wasn’t my father’s) in 1993; a Gateway 486sx-33 MHz. Two years later I popped out the CPU for a Pentium Overdrive 83 MHz CPU, and less than two years after that I built my first PC from scratch with an Intel Pentium-150. The clock speed bumps alone were dramatic, but that doesn’t even consider the huge architectural changes like pipelined instructions and branch prediction that came with the Pentium. The generational performance improvements were truly amazing back then.

 

[yRaz]

Indeed they were. I used to pour over PC Magazine and Computer Shopper to read up on all of the latest trends and offerings. I bought my first PC (that wasn’t my father’s) in 1993; a Gateway 486sx-33 MHz. Two years later I popped out the CPU for a Pentium Overdrive 83 MHz CPU, and less than two years after that I built my first PC from scratch with an Intel Pentium-150. The clock speed bumps alone were dramatic, but that doesn’t even consider the huge architectural changes like pipelined instructions and branch prediction that came with the Pentium. The generational performance improvements were truly amazing back then.

Cockspeed improvements alone that people were getting "we're going to get to 10ghz!" I think the gigahertz race ended with the Pentium4 and people started to see power numbers go crazy and how architecture was more important than clock speed. Last few years it seems like a gigahertz war has started. You could reliably break 5ghz on a 9900k and I've seen some daring souls try to daily drive a 13900k at above 6ghz. 10ghz might be a reality but the thought of it isn't nearly as exciting as it was in the 90's. Maybe we'll get a revolution in photonics and get to 100+ghz. I read a paper that the theoretical speed limits of a photonic chip is around 1petaherts or basically 100,000 times faster than what we have today. Photonics is probably further away than fusion....

 

[JamesBlond]

I like competition, but, what about moving away from native 64bit?
Lets push boundaries to 128Bit CPU's double the bandwidth, drop the CPU count, and lets skip to DDR-x6