A New Golden Age for Computer Architecture
> Today, 99% of 32-bit and 64-bit processors are RISC> 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 eraIt 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 )> Many researchers assume they must stop short because fabricating chips is unaffordable. When designs are small, they are surprisingly inexpensive.> 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.It will be interesting if manufacturing also gets open sourced. There already seems to be a project attempting this : http://libresilicon.com/