The realized advantage is PPW.
I do not see where I stated that they would drop Intel. Just that they would drop x86. Intel has had ARM and RISC architectures in the past and they recently announced that they are working on RISC-V.
Things haven’t been going especially well for Intel in the past few years. It has had multiple setbacks with its fabrication processes that has considerably set back its chipset timeline. This has severely hampered its ability to deliver chips that can deliver a combination of power and efficiency that is especially important in laptops. Most notably, this has led to Apple abandoning Intel for its entire product portfolio as it shifts to its own custom Arm-based chip designs.
Ironically, Intel once owned XScale, which made Arm-based SoCs that once powered the Pocket PCs and PDAs of yesteryear. Unfortunately for Intel, it sold its XScale business in 2006, the year before Apple launched the iPhone and paved the way for Arm-based chips to dominate the mobile market. Intel’s own x86-based Atom competitors simply couldn’t match the more efficient RISC architecture underpinning Arm-based designs. Intel is now investigating a possible ‘Plan B’ in a new partnership between it and RISC-V fabless chip designer SiFive.
The partnership will see Intel license SiFive’s IP to create its own SiFive P550-based 64-bit SoC that it will fabricate on its new 7 nm node. It will form the basis of a new development platform Intel is calling Horse Creek, and will be made available to customers interested in exploring its potential in various applications involving embedded SoC tech. This could mean smartphones, but also cars, IoT products and the like. If Intel gets enough interest, it could take the relationship further. Intel hasn’t yet revealed the technical specifications of the SoC, so we don’t know whether it will be a single-core or multi-core platform, although the latter is likely. It's GPU tech is also unknown at this time, but Xe-based graphics are likely.
Intel to make a custom SiFive-based RISC-V CPU, will be fabricated on a 7 nm node in a first step towards competing directly with Arm-based chips
Intel has taken its first steps towards directly taking on Arm-based chips through a new partnership with potential acquisition target SiFive. The hook-up will see Intel license SiFive’s chip architecture and fabricate a custom SoC expected in 2022.
Intel has to move in this direction. They are already losing business to AMD because of power efficiency. There is a lot of software stickiness with x86 but the power advantages will make ARM irresistible which is why you have so many companies announcing initiatives.
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