http://liliputing.com/2013/06/arm-introduces-cortex-a12-chips-with-big-little...http://liliputing.com/2013/06/qualcomm-launches-quad-core-snapdragon-400-proc...Silvermont is a vaporwear name that Intel has been touting for 2014, as is the Bay Trail name and various other Intel wonder chip names that have yet to come to production reality.
HOWEVER, it has become clear to ARM that they have left the gaps between their generations so large that 1) there is a place for Intel to sneak a real product into the spacing chinks on the off year and 2) by spacing generations so far apart the Chinese are being tempted into redoing old chips to tide them over between the main ARM generations.
Both Qualcom and the Chinese are playing the "pump up the A9 for another year" trick rather than making the big leap to the next ARM generation. So, ARM is going to try to make the "pump the A9 trick" go away with a finer bump increment to their generations in the future, giving away less of a gap for Intel to squeeze into.
The logic works as the NEED for all that big bump next generation ARM A15 big little power simply isn't here yet. And Samsung's octacore big little wonder whacker (which is real and is in production) is a chipset that is really searching for a need power-wise as it is way way way too strong for a tablet right now, much less in a phone.
(and the OS isn't optimized to fully use the 8 cores correctly right now anyway).
Watch both Intel and ARM start tailor making chips for more specific uses, hitting the nail more exactly on the head for the year in question and coming out with new more specifically tuned chipsets on a sub-yearly basis.
Make no mistake, Intel and ARM are competing head to head now for very specific market segments.
Intel still isn't actually MAKING their promised chipsets on time or at the needed promised price point, and ARM is consistently getting theirs out on time/on price and then having lots of time to refinine them at least one iteration before the competitive Intel chipset actually ships in quantity.
BUT (and it is a big BUT) watch Google this year -- they are going to use a rehashed A9 (Qualcom Krait) this year in preference to a more expensive A15 big little.
Why? Lower cost, it runs just about as fast on the currently released software and
the supply level is really really there -- the rehashed A9s can run on 2 year old wafer lines that everyone has in surplus and the state of the art A15 big/littles are all fighting for primo production space on a limited number of brand new production lines from only 3 vendors.
And still,
where the heck is Apple?
Anyone seen the big guy lately?
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