In past years, specialized processors have existed in very large vertical markets such as mobile phone application processors or markets where specific technical constraints exist such as DSPs. But broadly, processors have been segmented on compute capability: general purpose processors for servers vs. PCs vs. low-compute embedded applications. Specialization in processors has been constrained by Moore’s Law for many years, in many cases by invalidating the business case and matching the extra performance of the specialized processor just through Moore’s law effects.
Pure Moore’s law improvement, cutting costs in half while doubling the number of transistors, has increased from a year to 18 months. With the increasing limitations of Moore’s law, semiconductor companies will continue to extend further as the cost of implementing new processes and producing designs for them has skyrocketed.
