Couldn't find a similar thread, so consider this an open topic. If anybody else has questions feel free.
I've got a couple open-ended questions about ARM processors that I am confused about. (this all stems from AMD's recent announcement) I'm a self taught PC hardware enthusiast, I've been reading sites like TR and Anandtech almost daily for at least 3 years so I feel like I have a strong understanding of high level hardware functionality and the differences between various products. However, I have no formal schooling regarding the inner workings of processor architecture, coding, and such (besides what I pick up by reading TR and Anandtech for example) so my level of understanding regarding these things is moderate at best. (still better than your average Joe Schmoe, but I'm no CS/IT grad let's put it that way) Please word your responses so I can understand them.
1) ARM is some kind of open-source processor architecture right? It seems like everybody and nobody owns ARM. From my understanding, the ARM company just engineers the cores/architecture and licenses that out to other companies to fab. They kind of act like the processor R&D team at AMD or Intel for example. You can "buy" their cores to use on your SoC, or you can "buy" their architecture as a building block to engineer your own optimized cores.
2) Why/how did ARM gain such a strong foothold? Was it just because they were the first to make it to the lowest power usage arena? I have a hard time believing that AMD or Intel didn't see the need for this coming a long time ago when smartphones first started emerging and didn't think of something similar.
3) What's preventing others (AMD/Intel) from beating them? Is it just a big black box that nobody can reverse engineer? I have a hard time believing that since you can license their actual architecture like Apple did with the A6.