Silicon Insider

by Jim Turley
Silicon Insider

You read it every day in the press: Intel has 90-something percent share of the microprocessor market.

Nothing could be further from the truth. What Intel hasis 90-something percent share of the market for microprocessor chips used in PCs. But PCs are just a very small portion of the overall market for microprocesosrs chips. So although Intel clearly dominates that market, it's a small market. A big fish in a small pond, you might say.

So where do those other chips go? Overall, 98% of the microprocessor and micrcontroller chips manufactured every year go into something other than a PC. (Thus, Intel's 2% market share.) That's a lot of chips to ignore. And Intel has almost no presence in that "other" category. Instead, dozens of other semiconductor companies occupy that market space.

Now, this 98/2 percent split is measured by unit volume of chips, not by revenue. The revenue picture is quite different because PC processors are so expensive (read: overpriced). So although Intel makes only 2% of the world's microprocessors, it commands a much bigger share of the revenue pie. How much more? Give us a call and let's discuss it.

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by Jim Turley
Silicon Insider

The Web was supposed to be the great equalizer, an egalitarian delivery mechanism for all people (and all clients) everywhere. But gradually Web content has become PC-specific and x86-processor specific. Most Web content is now as processor-depandant as the latest Microsoft application. And that's not by chance.

Read the rest of this article on the Embedded Systems Design site.

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by Jim Turley
Silicon Insider

After more than 20 good, long years Intel has reached the end-of-life for a number of its x86 microprocessor chips. Within a few months Intel will no longer produce the '486, '386, or '186 processor families, ending a long line of "x86" part numbers. Henceforth the Pentium will be Intel's entry-level processor for embedded systems.

The cuts go deeper than that; the company is also discontinuing its venerable 8051 processor family, the unloved i960 family, and the MCS251 and MCS90 families. In all, Intel is stopping production of some of the most popular 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit chips ever made. Several thousand embedded designers are going to be very unhappy as they scramble for alternate sources for their favorite chips.

Still, time marches on and these processors were simply too old to be profitable any more. Ironically, it was Moore's Law that led to their demise. The '486, '386, 8051 and others were designed years ago for now-obsolete manufacturing processes. Although Intel has updated these chips' production lines in the past, they'd reached the point of diminishing returns and it is no longer financially attractive to upgrade them again. Instead, Intel gave its customers one year of notice: place your last orders or forever hold your peace.

Although we, and several thousand startled customers, will be sorry to see these chips go away, the end was inevitable. The question now is how and where customers will find alternate sources. Low-end alternatives for the 8051 and MCS90 chips won't be hard to find but the i960, '386 and '486 will be very difficult to replace.

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by Jim Turley
Silicon Insider

In a somewhat related announcement, the #2 PC processor maker has also pulled the plug on some of its embedded microprocessors. Rather than simply killing them off, however, AMD sold the product line to Raza Microelectronics. In this case, the Alchemy line of embedded processors will become Raza property.

Alchemy was originally a standalone company formed by the diaspora from Digital Semiconductor when that firm was carved up and given to Intel and Compaq (now Hewlett Packard). Many of the designers of Digital's amazing StrongARM processor left to form Alchemy, producing a "StrongMIPS" processor under the Alchemy name. That company was later acquired by AMD.

AMD's acquisition made sense (at the time) because it gave the company an alternative 32-bit architecture, much as Intel's acquisition of the Digital design team gave that company a back-up plan. Yet neither scheme has worked out as planned. Intel's XScale (its name for the Digital-derived products) has never been very popular, nor has AMD's Alchemy product line been a big hit. AMD has now spun off Alchemy and Intel is rumored to be entertaining offers for XScale as well.

Diversity is a good thing but when your company is focused on producing PC processors for the masses, nothing else can get in the way. As large and lucrative as the embedded microprocessor business can be, it's simply a distraction for these companies.

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