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CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

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Developers

When IBM awarded Intel the contract to provide the CPUs for its new IBM

PC back in 1980, it established for Intel a virtual monopoly on all PC CPUs.

The other home-computer CPU makers of the time faded away: MOS

Technology, Zilog, Motorola—no one could compete directly with Intel.

Over time, other competitors have risen to challenge Intel’s market-segment

share dominance. A company called Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) began

to make clones of Intel CPUs, creating an interesting and rather cutthroat

competition with Intel that lasts to this day.

NOTE The ever-growing selection of mobile devices, such as the Apple

iPhone and iPad and most Android devices, use a CPU architecture

developed by ARM Holdings, called ARM. ARM-based processors use a

simpler, more energy-efficient design, the reduced instruction set computing

(RISC) architecture. They can’T match the raw power of the Intel and AMD

complex instruction set computing (CISC) chips, but the savings in cost and

battery life make ARM-based processors ideal for mobile devices. (Note that

the clear distinction between RISC and CISC processors has blurred. Each

design today borrows features of the other design to increase efficiency.)

ARM Holdings designs ARM CPUs, but doesn’t manufacture them. Many

other companies—most notably, Qualcomm—license the design and

manufacture their own versions. See Chapter 24, “Understanding Mobile

Devices.”

Intel

Intel Corporation thoroughly dominates the personal computer market with

its CPUs and motherboard support chips. At nearly every step in the

evolution of the PC, Intel has led the way with technological advances and

surprising flexibility for such a huge corporation. Intel CPUs—and more

specifically, their instruction sets—define the personal computer. Intel

currently produces a dozen or so models of CPU for both desktop and

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