Instruction-Level Parallelism and Its Exploitation - Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach - page 239

Fallacy It Is Easy To Predict The Performance And Energy Efficiency Of Two
Different Versions Of The Same Instruction Set Architecture, If We Hold The
Technology Constant
Intel manufactures a processor for the low-end Netbook and PMD space that is quite similar
in its microarchitecture of the ARM A8, called the Atom 230. Interestingly, the Atom 230 and
the Core i7 920 have both been fabricated in the same 45 nm Intel technology. Figure 3.44 sum-
marizes the Intel Core i7, the ARM Cortex-A8, and Intel Atom 230. These similarities provide
a rare opportunity to directly compare two radically different microarchitectures for the same
instruction set while holding constant the underlying fabrication technology. Before we do the
comparison, we need to say a litle more about the Atom 230.