Functions and new OSes become the starting point for SoCs, but hardware still matters.
The influence of software engineers is growing inside of chip and systems companies, reversing a decades-old trend of matching the software to the fastest or most power-efficient hardware and raising as-yet unanswered questions about what will change in SoC design.
The shift is particularly evident in chips developed for high-volume markets such as mobile phones and tablets. It’s also happening with high-value processors developed for servers and networks, and for some applications where power or performance is critical, such as cars and Internet of Things/Internet of Everything devices. In all of those are markets there are enough engineering resources and sufficient price resiliency to spend time getting the functionality right first, and then to figure out how best to tackle the engineering challenges.