Whither Warhol´s law? [embedded computing]

Author

Wolf, Wayne

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Princeton Univ., NJ, USA

Volume

35

Issue

9

fYear

2002

fDate

9/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

96

Lastpage

97

Abstract

The article discusses a law concocted by the author: "Warhol\´s Law of Computer Systems Architecture." This law stated that every computer architecture would be the price-performance leader for 15 minutes. The author was thinking mainly of workstation CPUs, but he believed the embedded CPU market would follow suit. Embedded systems provide an ideal forum for CPU competition. A lot of people seemed to want to design CPUs, so the author reasoned that no end of new competitors would appear to introduce new features and drive down prices. It hasn\´t worked out that way, however. The high-end market has several players, but not the profusion expected a few years go.

Keywords

DP industry; computer architecture; embedded systems; technological forecasting; Alpha; CPU architectures; CPU competition; MIPS; PA-RISC; Sparc; competitors; computer architecture; embedded CPU market; embedded systems; price-performance leader; workstation CPUs; Assembly; Computer architecture; Convergence; Costs; Embedded computing; Fabrication; Foundries; Hardware; Logic arrays; Program processors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computer

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9162

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MC.2002.1033036

Filename

1033036