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by justincormack 4700 days ago
Its not clear if it is third or fourth now. MIPS may be third after ARM.
2 comments
Symmetry 4700 days ago
It really depends on whether your counting number of chips or dollars in sales. POWER chips sell at a premium inside high end enterprise systems, while MIPS is embedded in lots of places like handheld consoles and routers for more chips sold but for less money.
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vidarh 4700 days ago
The high end POWER chips from IBM makes up a miniscule fraction of the overall Power/PPC market in terms of units. PPC sells in comparable unit numbers to MIPS, but mostly from architecture licensees like Freescale.
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vidarh 4700 days ago
Depends if you count by revenue, or by units.

In shipped units, MIPS is quite likely either second after ARM, or third after ARM and PPC.

MIPS was estimating an expected 500 million units for last year, I believe - I don't know if they met it. PPC has been estimated in the same ballpark.

Unless Via's x86 sales are far higher than expected, x86 is likely below 400 million units shipped a year.

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