Date: 26/10/2010

Study says 75% of all mobile processors will be multi-core by 2014

In-stat in its latest release of its report "Mobile Processors: The Battle Heats Up in 2011" says, consumer patterns and the history of the high-tech market indicate that the total number of mobile devices will continue to expand, increasing the TAM of mobile processors to nearly 4 billion by 2014.

"Currently, two architectures, ARM and x86 dominate the low and high-end of the mobile market, respectively, and are battling it out for the mid-range convergence devices like e-readers, tablets, and netbooks;" says Jim McGregor, Chief Technology Strategist. "However, other architectures, such as MIPS and SH, are equally suited to power mobile SoCs. As more emphasis is placed on the OS and mobile applications, the use of a particular processor architecture or instruction set is likely to become less important. The differentiating factors become price, power, and performance."

Recent research findings of In-stat include:
Nearly 75% of all mobile processors will be multi-core in 2014, and an even higher percentage will have integrated baseband.
The trend toward integrated baseband modems will become a critical differentiator for mobile processors over the next few years.
Tablets represent the fastest growing market segment for mobile processors with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 123.6% from 2009 through 2014.
Cellphones, including feature phones and smartphones, represent the largest opportunity for mobile processors today and for the foreseeable future.