Try to investigate the differences between the x86 and ARM processor families (or x86 and the Apple M1), and you'll see the acronyms CISC and RISC. It's a common way to frame the discussion, but not a ...

Remember how I said that Moore's Law is "the full-employment act for computer pundits"? In the smaller niche of microprocessor journalism, there used to be another topic that was always good for a ...

RISC vs. CISC wars raged in the 1980s when chip area and processor design complexity were the primary constraints and desktops and servers exclusively dominated the computing landscape. Today, energy ...

Despite what has been written (and rewritten) about the potential obsolescence of platforms based on RISC processors, they keep on going and going. Indeed, RISC processors have never been more ...

A computer processor uses a so-called Instruction Set Architecture to talk with the world outside of its own circuitry. This ISA consists of a number of instructions, which essentially define the ...

Ten years ago, I waded into the then-raging “Mac vs. PC” wars with a lengthy treatise on “RISC vs. CISC: the Post-RISC Era.” In the conclusion to that article, I declared the “RISC vs. CISC” debate ...