A New Golden Age for Computer Architecture
> Today, 99% of 32-bit and 64-bit processors are RISC<p>> Concluding this historical review, we can say the marketplace settled the RISC-CISC debate; CISC won the later stages of the PC era, but RISC is winning the post-PC era<p>It is clear that his assessment is right, but isn't the 99% number too high ? Servers, laptops and desktops still run x86 and they are CISC ( unless you are counting x86 as RISC based on microcode )<p>> Many researchers assume they must stop short because fabricating chips is unaffordable. When designs are small, they are surprisingly inexpensive.<p>> High-level, domain-specific languages and architectures, freeing architects from the chains of proprietary instruction sets, along with demand from the public for improved security, will usher in a new golden age for computer architects. Aided by open source ecosystems, agilely developed chips will convincingly demonstrate advances and thereby accelerate commercial adoption.<p>It will be interesting if manufacturing also gets open sourced. There already seems to be a project attempting this : <a href="http://libresilicon.com/" rel="nofollow">http://libresilicon.com/</a>