LONDON — It's a straightforward argument. The higher the oil price goes the better things are for processor IP licensor ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England) and the worse they get for the world's largest chip company Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

That is until the price of oil hits $200 a barrel at which point the global economy is likely to implode like a black hole, according to some experts.

The straightforward argument is that the more expensive oil becomes the more expensive is power in all its forms. And that is as true for notebook computers as it is for mobile phones and basestations.

So power, green and recycling conscious have we become, there is even the prospect that Intel processors could become first unfashionable and then within an Orwellian European Union, illegal.

Although it is hard to directly compare ARM and Intel processor efficiency, because the two processor architectures traditionally run different software, the generally accepted wisdom is that the leading ARM processor is quite a bit more efficient that a leading Intel processor on the same process technology node. However, it is often the case that Intel can produce on a more advanced process earlier than ARM's processor licensors.

However, the more that Intel tries to compete directly with ARM in the Mobile Internet Device (MID) space (see ARM versus Intel? published Jan. 7, 2008) the more Intel's power inefficiency is likely to be revealed.

The advent of ecodesign legislation in Europe directly targets power-consuming electronics products (see Are you ready for EcoDesign? published on Feb. 13, 2008).

For now the legislation is focused on the waste caused by the standby mode, but increasingly the tone of the documentation is that designers must show that they have taken appropriate steps to reduce the power consumption of their products. And if they cannot do that there is the risk that the products will not be allowed to be marketed within the European Union.

Those appropriate steps are likely to be a moving target that will migrate from the standby button, to the hardware in general and then to the software.

Surely Intel processors could not be deemed illegal in Europe just because they are power-hungry?

Well, the preparatory report on the ecodesign of PCs, published in September 2007, considered power savings in the processor and on the motherboard, including a discussion of the benefits of multicore processors. Software was excluded from the discussion although the opportunity for power-saving through improved coding was noted. And Microsoft's Vista operating system was criticized in the report for the way it "wastes" computer cycles.

So there is no doubt that peak oil is driving a state of mind that will favor ARM or possibly another processor that is even more "green" and power-efficient. And meanwhile engineers should learn to write code for minimum instructions issued and computer cycles used.