Embedded processors may be smaller, less powerful, and less profitable than their PC-bound brethren, but they offer just as much room for innovation. The huge size of the special-purpose CPU market makes it an attractive one for an array of heavyweight companies, including AMD, Intel, and Motorola. And because of the widespread practice of licensing and customizing chip designs, the embedded processor market is in some ways more creative and competitive than the desktop or notebook CPU space.

In this sequel to our "Lots of Little Chips" feature, we'll look at some of the latest technologies to emerge in embedded processors -- and see how vendors are putting these chips to work well beyond the mainstream electronics industry.

ARM: Beyond Phones and PDAs

Although there are still plenty of x86 architecture-based embedded processors, ARM Holdings' RISC-based designs are growing fast in non-PC applications. For example, the medical industry offers one of the most important and lucrative markets for embedded processors, according to Robin Saxby, the chairman of the firm that licenses core designs to chip manufacturers. (See "PDA Processors, Part 1" -- Ed.)

"In 10 years, medical monitoring systems will have a similar impact and be a similar driver to what the mobile phone has done for our industry in the last 10 years," Saxby predicted in his keynote address to the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco in April. "Biotech applications are on the way, and I think they will stretch the definition of a system-on-chip."

For example, wearable patches with embedded chips could serve as blood-alcohol and glucose detectors, wirelessly sending data to external monitors. Saxby also sees a future for implantable devices that track your health from the inside, like a sort of pacemaker for your brain that can slow Parkinson's disease or fend off epilepsy attacks.

ARM-based chip designs, licensed and built by firms like Texas Instruments and Intel, already dominate the handheld and wireless phone markets. ARM recently announced it would be building hardware-level security, called TrustZone, into future designs; although this security architecture will be built into the core, the specific applications will be left to software developers.