Intel: Our new mobile chip SoCs it to its predecessor Intel has released more details about its upcoming Clovertrail+ system-on-chip (SoC) platform for smartphones, and its enhancements appear to provide a big ol' boost above and beyond the company's current smartphone chip-wannabe, Medfield. During a Monday morning session at the at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford …
" If so there are Arch, Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu for ARM."
Exactly. And many others less visible in the x86-centric consumer market.
I've used MontaVista on ARM in a bit of professional comms kit. I've looked at using jlime and friends in a decade-old PDA.
The handset sector has had mutliple attempts at building a mainstream ARM-oriented Linux, and now Android (Linux with a proprietary UI) is wiping the floor with landfill WinPhone.
Any smart TV, SoHo router, NAS box, etc, etc, has a good chance of having ARM Linux Inside (and near zero probability of having x86 Linux inside).
Even Intel have their very own ARM Linux (also supporting MIPs, PPC, and x86), courtesy of their Wind River acquisition.
If a piece of kit came with a hardcopy of the GPL licence as well as the usual QuickStart guide, it's got Linux (or a relative) inside.
Penguins are in a lot of places. Most folk don't see them. Those with open eyes can see them. The ones with open eyes see ARM Inside.
seeing the list of CloverTrail+ "SoC" design and fabrication partners.
It won't need much space. The list, that is.
On the other hand, the Clovertrail+ system, as a whole, will still need more space than the highly integrated true-SoC non-x86 competition. Probably more power too (we'll have to wait and see).
The highly integrated SoC builders don't much care about whether theirs is an x86 or not. The phone builders don't. The end users don't.
The chip builders and phone builders now even have evidence (from sales figures, amongst other things) that the end user no longer cares whether it runs Windows or not (in fact, on a phone, running Windows is a big negative).
And that's before we even get onto commercial aspects, such as the price point these SoCs need to be at in order to win ongoing business vs the various incumbents, and the effect that price point may have on other x86 product margins (hint: downward price pressure on legacy x86?).
How long did it take Intel to realise that IA64 was a big black money pit? Maybe HP will realise too in a couple of years? How long will it take them in this market, with no sucker like HP to pass the costs on to?
Meantime, looking to the big picture, how are Intel going to find a post-Wintel moneyspinner?
I know, put Ballmer on the board. A skilled businessman like him with his experience, and now with time on his hands, he'd soon sort them out.
At whatever Intel wants to charge for it.
Perhaps Intel has guessed analyed the market carefully and this is indeed the perfect match for the phone capabilities customers demand for tomorrow. They do have lots of highly paid staff to do stuff like that.
I sense they still don't quite get the idea of customization. You know, the whole parts tailored to your specifications incorporating the peripherals you want on them?
Not to worry though. Intel have a very large cash pile left so they can afford another mistake.
Proceed with this nonsense at flank speed say I.
Right now the ARM market is dominated by Qualcomm, nVidia, and Samsung. None of those play particularly nice with the open source world (though Linus could have been more polite in voicing those concerns). Intel, on the other hand, has always been a good Linux partner. Getting more competition into that market would be a very good thing.
Feels weird talking about Intel *adding* competition to a market, I know...
A 7.5" x 11.5" cased tablet with about 13" diagonal screen, minimum 1450 x 960 pixels (133dpi) ideally about 1960 x 1300 (180dpi) or about 2140 x 1400 (200dpi). BT keyboard should be included ( :) ). Also you should be able to chose iOS, OSX, WinXP, RiscOS, Linux, Android or Win8 (or whatever, pre-loaded and swap later).
Can't see the point of it in a phone.
Indeed probably to expensive and (despite the rolling promises of the marketeers) thirsty for phones. I initially thought tablet/hybrid things too but that 2GB RAM ceiling sounds a bit tight for those and they tend to run *far* finer screens than 1920x1200. Perfect for "netbook" type device design from ten years ago perhaps?
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launched back in February and not mentioned much besides in the recent AnTuTu benchmark cheating debacle... There was talk that ZTE would launch phones based on it but nothing has happened since. I haven't seen recent x86 phone market share figures, but I very much doubt they are gaining share.
"Intel also claims that the power needs of its next-gen SoC should be comparable to its ARM-based competition"
Maybe, I haven't seen detailed power consumption tests. However it's performance is certainly lacklustre compared to the Galaxy S4: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/compare/1979365/1970335
A lot of people are still underestimating Intel. This announcement is just evidence of a big team of engineers developing the platform, they have spent the last couple of Atom generations integrating existing Intel tech, hyper threading, power saving tech from Sandy/Ivy bridge, memory controller....
They have been doing this at a rate of major new generation every 12 months, far quicker than the competition, and whether you believe the benchmarks showing Intel more efficient that ARM or not is irrelevant, the fact it is up for debate any any one can build a phone based on the design and it be some where usable means Atom is somewhere close, 2 years ago it was not in the same ballpark.
Now Intel are close they are going to start pulling the trump cards, in the next 14 months we are going to see two more major releases including big upgrades to performance and efficiency such as out of order processing, 64bit, higher core counts, along with 2! full node process shrinks. In most processor family's that's 3-5 years worth of Moore's law Intel can bring to bear in 14 months.
This is a one off windfall Intel are going to get by making Atom a first class product line. If I were ARM I would be very worried about the performance of the next couple of Atom designs and how you compete with a product exceeding Moors Law, they don't want to be squeezed into the value end of the market, it didn't do much for AMD.
"out of order processing, 64bit, higher core counts, along with 2! full node process shrinks. In most processor family's that's 3-5 years worth of Moore's law Intel can bring to bear in 14 months."
Righto.
Now remind me why *any* normal computer user needs that stuff, especially in a battery powered device such as a phone, tablet, etc.
Then remind me what price it has to sell for in comparison with the prices for ARM partner designs, and what effect that will have on desktop x86 prices (you clearly know what happens if margins are squeezed painfully).
Intel are clever guys. That's why their management backed IA64 rather than AMD64. That's why they sold their StrongARM rights to Marvell (the StrongARM people and technology they inherited from DEC). That's why Intel's wireless people did so well with ubiquitous WiMax. And with embedded graphics. And volume market built-in NICs. And so on. Intel ran out of ideas when they "ran out of people to copy from" (no prize: which Intel VP said that, what were the exact words, and where/when did he say it?).
Intel. The x86 company. Look around you and confirm it with your own eyes.
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