The End of Personal Computer

Siddartha Reddy N
Computer Science Department
San Jose State University
San Jose, CA 95112
408-668-5452
siddartha.nagireddy@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Today, the dominance of the PC as our primary computing device
is on a decline, the fall in sales of PC year after year indicates the
same. The emergence of mobile devices such as tablet’s and cell
phones has been the primary cause for such a rapid decline in the
role of PC as our primary computing device. The success of these
new models, such as the Google Nexus or the Apple iPad is leading
many to believe that the end of PC has arrived. Advances in
semiconductor process technology especially in the areas of power
consumption and power/performance trade-offs has played a major
role in the success of such models. But is the PC really dead? Or
are advances in technology simply allowing the PC to morph into
something new. This paper will concentrate of the factors affecting
the decline of PC and the advancements in technologies which lead
to the emergence of high performing mobile devices.

1. INTRODUCTION
When we look back at the past fifteen years, we see that the Figure 1: Worldwide shipments of devices 7
personal computing industry has changed and grown a lot. Some of
the major changes are the advent of cheaper desktops, the internet
revolution & the laptops, there has been constant shifts and changes
in this industry. However even in this continuously changing
industry we see some constants, Microsoft has dominated the
operating system with their flagship Windows product whereas
Linux and Apple never really been a dominance in this area. There
are various key trends which are now looking to shake up this
personal computing industry, netbooks have marked drastic
transformation in consumer preferences from processor-intensive
and memory heavy mindsets of incumbent computer
manufacturers; the virtual cloud is growing in strength and
viability, providing rich services for all to use; emerging user
interfaces are creating new experiences for consumers across
platforms; and the speed of convergence between mobile phones
and computers continue to increase.

The cloud is putting more of an emphasis on services rather than

local applications. There is a drop in selling price of OEM’s and
operating system producers due to the rise of netbooks. And we see Figure 2: PC as computing device7
a huge growth in the smartphone market despite the recession
which shows the value users see in these devices1. 2. TRENDS
The below graphs depict the fall of PC simultaneously Here we analyze the factors which have led to the decline of
comparing it with the other mobile devices which have seen Personal Computing Industry, factors such as the rise of netbooks,
tremendous growth. The first graph talks about the number of emergence of smartphones, availability of wireless networks and
shipments and second one about the % of PC as computing device. experimentation with alternative user interfaces.
2.1 NETBOOKS & TABLETS and find out route to a destination, why use computer to check
The introduction of netbooks in 2007-08 took the personal emails and reply to them. These tasks can be easily and effectively
computing world by storm which then went on to become the handled by smartphones. Indeed smartphones are absolutely a
fastest growing business segment for some time. People have opted small computer in your pocket, and that could mean big changes
for these devices and this shows that people are interested in for the PC industry. If one can think about these smartphones as
owning a device that is sufficient enough to browse the web and miniature computers then it’s not hard to predict that in coming 5
run basic applications1. This caused the industry to worry about the or 10 years these smartphones will be powerful enough to become
impact these netbooks will have on the sales of laptops, but our main computing devices.
subsequently netbook sales where choked by tablets which is a PROCESSORS IN SMARTPHONES
different story altogether. This means that consumers are interested
in lightweight, portable devices that are connected to the web. For these smartphones to reach that level of computing power chips
Furthermore, it indicates that people are spending a lot of their time used must be more powerful and more energy efficient. The
on PC to browse the web and by which it means they do not need evolution of CPU processors in smartphones will play a major role
faster and stronger computers. in their future as the main computing device. Already with the
advent of multi core processors such as dual, quad and octa -core
During the late 2010’s Apple’s iPad came out and revolutionized processors which are currently being used by current smartphones.
the mobile industry. It fit perfectly for people who are looking for One main distinction between smartphones and computers is that
lightweight devices to browse web and run basic applications the computers can perform multiple tasks much more easily when
which are not too processor hungry. The sales skyrocketed and compared to a smartphone. Mobile devices perform various tasks
subsequently created an impact over the laptop sales. The below such as browsing, video playback, messaging, location based
graph depicts the impact suffered by PC’s due to advent of tablets. services, gaming etc. They are also used for various performance
After the emergence of tablets especially from the year 2010 – 11 intensive tasks that were previously handled by traditional PC’s.
we see a dip in the sales of PC’s worldwide which faces a tough The below diagram depicts the DSP architecture for mobile phones
competition from the rising sales of tablets eventually surpassing which was one of the earliest architectures used in a mobile phone2.
PC in the year 2015.

Figure 4 Traditional DSP Architecture

Figure 3 Tablets Vs PC Shipment estimates Programmable DSP’s provide a cost effective and flexible
architecture for mobile phones. AT&T first introduced DSP in
Now consider an industry where computers are getting faster and
1979 and subsequently Texas Instruments came up with various
requirement of some people is a lightweight, portable product. This
other DSP’s5. The below table depicts the evolution of DSP’s over
is where the netbooks, tablets have a role to play and subsequently
the years.
this led to users shifting to these devices which led to the fall in
sales of PC’s.

2.2 EMERGENCE OF SMARTPHONES

Initially it may not be clear as in how smartphones can affect the
Personal Computing industry but as they grow stronger and
stronger there will be a huge impact on this industry. Let’s look
back twenty years ago, telephones made calls and that was all that
they did. Ten years ago cell phones allowed people to leave their
home and still make calls. Soon after, text messaging was
introduced. Then photos, internet, games and video all made their
way onto these modern phones. Nowadays, a smartphone performs
many of the same functions of a computer, and in some ways
performs better. For example, why use a computer to look at a map Figure 5 Table depicting DSP evolution over years
ARM PROCESSORS FOR MOBILE
However in modern smartphones ARM based processors are most
widely used. ARM is a 32 bit instruction set based on RISC
architecture. They are particularly used in smartphones due to its
low power consumption but great performance mantra. The low
end phones use ARM v5 whereas high end mobile devices use
ARMv6 and ARMv7, ARMv7 consists of hardware floating point
unit which yields improved speed3. ARM architecture is the main
hardware architecture for most of the mobile operating systems
like Android, Windows, Blackberry and Apple.
The below picture depicts the ARM Cortex-A8 Architecture.

Figure 7 Qualcomm Snapdragon Architecture

In 2013, Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor clocked at 2.3GHz
clock speed outperformed all other processors. The below diagram
is of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with Adreno 330
GPU and Hexagon DSP.

Figure 6 ARM Cortext-A8 Architecture

Until 2011 it was considered that a single core ARM Cortex – A8
processor clocked at 1.4GHz speed was sufficient, this year ARM
processors have clocked at 3GHz speed. These upcoming
processors are expected to up the clock speeds by 30% and reduce
the power consumption by 25%4.
Also mobile computing is getting ready for a drastic change this
year with the advent of new 64-bit ARM based processors which Figure 8 Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
are expected to provide up to 50% performance improvement when Snapdragon 800 processors are designed to facilitate fast apps,
compared with 32-bit processors. Android 5.0 will utilize this new browsing, stunning graphics while gaming, seamless connectivity
64-bit architecture to effectively handle tasks. and outstanding battery life.

QUALCOMM SNAPDRAGON PROCESSORS NVIDIA TEGRA PROCESSORS

Snapdragon is based on SoC processor architecture provided by Tegra is a SoC series for mobile devices developed by Nvidia. It
Qualcomm. They are built around Krait processor architecture as integrates ARM Architecture CPU, graphics processing unit,
shown in the figure below. It includes LTE modem, Adreno GPU memory controllers etc. on a single package. Nvidia Tegra 4
for graphics and with the Hexagon DSP’s this architecture provides processor is a quad core Soc with increased GPU cores, faster clock
low power consumption for a variety of multimedia applications cycles and improved efficiency. The below picture depicts the
like enhanced audio/video. Nvidia Tegra 4 processor.
 This shift will drive the lack of demand for high end machines and
the high consumer demand for portability. As the cloud grows in
importance, the need for stronger computer diminishes. The
computer will now only be a client used mainly to access storage
and services on the web.

2.4 DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW

Looking at the current demographics will give a good idea of what
people will use in the future. One of the statistical analysis done
from a Pew Research study of tablet user demographics is given
below:
16% of very young people use tablets (15-20)
18% of young people use tablets (20-29)
25% of adults use tablets (30 -55)
Figure 9: NVIDIA Tegra Architecture This is somewhat odd than what we would have expected, we see
that older people use tablets more while compared to younger
All the modern processors are basically ARM-based, with newer
people. It is assumed that younger people would have been more
versions of mobile CPU’s we will have more powerful smartphone
since they are the earliest adopters of technology trends.
with new GPU cores, memory interfaces and many more advanced
features. The reason for this is that older adults who grew up with traditional
computers have developed habits that a tablet naturally extends
The development of mobile processors is driven by factors such as
such as browsing the internet, checking emails. These people buy
low-power consumption, performance and time to market, the next
tablets as a secondary replacement for laptops for same kinds of
generation processors must be designed considering new
tasks with similar context.
approaches. The evolution in these processors will facilitate higher
multitasking and eventually place smartphones as our main Whereas younger people are more adopted to their mobile devices
computing device in the near future. because that’s what they are grown up using. Older adults use
tablets mostly and younger people use smartphones.
55% Teens use phones to connect to internet (14 – 22)
2.3 AVAILABILTY OF WIRELESS
15% adults use phones to connect to internet (23 – 55)
NETWORKS
Since the early 2000’s the internet has become an essential part of Smartphones are favorite for teens and hence they use it to connect
our lives. As the importance of intern grew it became more to internet. Since young people have grown up on smartphones it
important for wireless connectivity. Wireless connections to has fundamentally changed the way they use and think about
internet drive productivity and efficiency since you can access internet. Tablets are not that particular for them, whereas the adults
internet from anywhere. With the coverage of this wireless who grew up on computers have a degraded experience with smart
connectivity growing more and more services and storage will shift phones. Hence they are little more generous towards using tablets
to cloud. From the below graph we can already see that Tablets & to connect to internet. This behavior will continue and as the young
Smartphones overtake PC as the devices used to connect to people grow up it will be even more striking.
internet.

2.5 ADVANCEMENTS IN UI DESIGN

Ever since the introduction of the graphic user interface (GUI) for
the computer operating systems have used it extensively with slight
modifications and updates but fundamentally sticking to interface
of icons and textual input. Recently we have seen new interfaces
such as touch, voice recognition, hand gestures, eye tracking etc.
which have made it into the mainstream market.
With the introduction of iPhone the mobile industry quickly
migrated towards the touch based usage of phones from a keyboard
based usage. This has also surged into the PC market with laptops
being implemented with touch based sensitivity and removable
keyboards etc.
As there various interfaces mature, it is likely that different devices
will adopt which ever interface best fits.
Figure 10: Gartner analysis on device shipments8
3. CONCLUSION [2] Dr. Margarita Esponda: “Trends in Hardware Architecture for
Mobile Devices”.

In conclusion we can say that the personal computing industry will [3] “ARM Processor architecture”, SOC Consortium
continue towards rapid change. This industry has become largely [4] Leonid Ryzhyk: “The ARM Architecture”
commoditized, I believe consumers will be on the winning side here
with lower priced and better products on the pipeline. Many of the [5] Andrew Fallows and Patrick Ganson: “Smartphone
developers / manufacturers will be forced to change the way they Hardware Architecture”
currently do the business, while some look to diversify some will [6] Teens, Social Media, and Privacy by Pew Research Internet
consolidate. Project
[7] Evan Niu, CFA : Simple chart that proves PC is dead
The next five or ten years should be an exciting period for
smartphone market as the processors become more and more [8] Gartner IDC Strategic analysis Global internet connected
powerful and energy efficient. Slowly but steadily the common devices
man will find all his needs addressed by a smartphone or tablet and [9] Mainak Chaudhuri: Smartphone Hardware : Anatomy of a
will eventually rarely use a personal computer. handset

4. REFERENCES [10] Kiezer Gregg. “Windows marked shares dive below 90% for
the first time.” Computer World. December 1, 2008

[1] Sujoy Banerjee : The Future of Personal Computing [11] Oreskovic. Alexei. “Google, Microsoft, Palm rev up
smartphone race” Forbes.