AMD vs ARM Comparison

Advanced Micro Devices designs a variety of digital semiconductors for markets such as PCs, gaming consoles, data centers, industrial, and automotive applications. AMD's traditional strength was in central processing units and graphics processing units used in PCs and data centers. Additionally, the firm supplies the chips found in prominent game consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox. In 2022, the firm acquired field-programmable gate array leader Xilinx to diversify its business and augment its opportunities in key end markets such as data center and automotive.

Arm Holdings is the IP owner and developer of the ARM architecture (ARM stands for Acorn RISC Machine), which is used in 99% of the world's smartphone CPU cores, and it also has high market share in other battery-powered devices like wearables, tablets, or sensors. Arm licenses its architecture for a fee, offering different types of licenses depending on the flexibility the customer needs. Customers like Apple or Qualcomm buy architectural licenses, which allows them to modify the architecture and add or delete instructions to tailor the chips to their specific needs. Other clients directly buy off-the-shelf designs from Arm. Off-the-shelf and architectural customers pay a royalty fee per chip shipped.