Editing Processor design (section)

===General-purpose computing===
{{As of|2010}}, in the general-purpose computing market, that is, desktop, laptop, and server computers commonly used in businesses and homes, the Intel [[IA-32]] and the 64-bit version [[x86-64]] architecture dominate the market, with its rivals [[PowerPC]] and [[SPARC]] maintaining much smaller customer bases. Yearly, hundreds of millions of IA-32 architecture CPUs are used by this market.  A growing percentage of these processors are for mobile implementations such as netbooks and laptops.<ref>Kerr, Justin. [http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/amd_loses_market_share_mobile_cpu_sales_outsell_desktop_first_time "AMD Loses Market Share as Mobile CPU Sales Outsell Desktop for the First Time."]  Maximum PC.  Published 2010-10-26.</ref>

Since these devices are used to run countless different types of programs, these CPU designs are not specifically targeted at one type of application or one function. The demands of being able to run a wide range of programs efficiently has made these CPU designs among the more advanced technically, along with some disadvantages of being relatively costly, and having high power consumption.

====High-end processor economics====
In 1984, most high-performance CPUs required four to five years to develop.<ref>
"New system manages hundreds of transactions per second" article
by Robert Horst and Sandra Metz, of Tandem Computers Inc.,
"Electronics" magazine, 1984 April 19:
"While most high-performance CPUs require four to five years to develop,
The [[NonStop (server computers)|NonStop]] TXP processor took just 2+1/2 years --
six months to develop a complete written specification,
one year to construct a working prototype,
and another year to reach volume production."
</ref>