Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Not me who says it, but Sebastian Anthony from Extremetech.

And I think he is right, but not because Motorola goes in.

A SoC x86 compatible system means smartphones, tablets, handhelds, netbooks... than can run whatever x86 thing you want to, with no emulation at all.

You can have a Windows or Linux machine running in the size of a N900.

They can say "wait, you already can do that", but this time is different because this is native. Linux does get coded with x86 in mind and then ported to other platforms. Linux gets updates first, and then the other platforms. Also, when you have the kernel as much as optimized as possible to the SoC core, you then can focus to the rest of the hardware.

So when they start to release tablets with this SoC and opensource-driven hardware, developing for *any* other platform will be the same that today is to develop for exotic systems: a challenge.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Intel can try and market what ever they want, but manufacturers and customers have always found that Intel's claims of battery efficient parity with ARM chips were WAAAAAY overblown in all past attempts.

Am I the only one to remember the Moorestown marketing crap that mostly seems to be repeated verbatim in this article you are referencing?

At this point, any talk of Intel producing X86 chips for "mobile" devices to try and displace ARM's dominance sounds like nothing more then crying wolf.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

and when you get a x86 pocket device with windows or some other os and a locked bootloader how do you think that you will install anything else on it

btw. mobile phones with embeded x86 processors exist since the 90's and the arm is still here somehow...

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Linux gets coded with C in mind; yes, it gets compiled into x86 binaries first, because there just are a lot of x86 cpus out there, but the days of Linux being tied to any one specific architecture are long past. I can't think of any significant Linux product these days actually using any assembler code; you can get pretty good speed with properly written C, and being platform-independent is just too valuable to throw away.

There's a reason why you find Linux on everything from embedded devices to supercomputers...

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

...site knowingly biased towards American companies. "ultra-low-power Atom chips", yeah sure. There's just money pushing it in, probably.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Game over? I doubt it. Many new smartphones have ARM Cortex processors which are as fast as my Atom-powered netbook. But the Atom runs at about 8 watts. The ARM processor? 2 watts max. Also, look at price...there's a reason most new manufacturers are going into phones: the profit margin for an ARM-powered device is much higher. Unless Intel is able to bring down the cost and power usage, this is not going to go very far.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Intel/Nokia

Now Intel/Motorola...

I don´t know, seems to me that all Intel movements are for preventing ARM to enter the servers market and other strategic areas for them.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

The new Intel CPU is awesome.
It is more powerful than a Tegra 2 and consumes less battery.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Opensource-driven hardware? Excuse me, I have to laugh. Ha ha. He he.

Now what were you saying? ah, Intel. Yeah, I'm sure ARM are scared now.

In case you don't know, almost every low-power smart device in this world runs on Linux or a variant thereof. That means ARM is supported out-of-the-box.

The only relevance of x86 low-power hardware would be to run those lame operating systems that only support (and badly at that) x86. I think that would be Windows.

Now, who would want Windows on a low-power device? Heck, who would want Windows on a high-power device?

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

List of architectures supported by linux.

List of architectures supported by windos, ugh...1.


Linux is already the most important operating system in use today, you just do not realise it yet.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Consumers almost always benefit from this kind of battle.

I say Bring it on Intel!

AMD.....you gonna just let this go?

Earth to Motorola.:D

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

At the end of the day, ARM thrives because it's awesome in almost every respect over x86. Granted, that's a less-than-fully informed opinion, but if I recall correctly I've read some technical articles suggesting the instruction set was better on ARM for some reason or another; ARM being supperior power consumption-wise is well-known, and what ever happened to the rumblings of Windows planning on supporting ARM eventually?

I admit that sometimes I hate that certain manufacturers support x86 in a special way, such as Adobe providing a flash player only for x86 as a free download, but aside from the occasional proprietariness-limited crap, everything is doable on ARM really.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Well, yes, you got out-of-the-box-but-with-no-graphics support.
Very usefull for servers and routers, a bit less so for smartphones and tablets.
Not really a problem if you're a big company, you can buy the closed drivers with the hardware, but for start-ups and community, not so good (you're left with android basically, which is not really linux).

It's not really ARM vs x86 support that matters, it's this kind of support (documentation and sources*) vs, to my knowledge, any GPU constructor in the ARM world (although there are recent efforts for open 2D drivers from these constructors).


* I know intel's atom associated gpu driver support is rubbish, but at least some times it's correctly done.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

The new ATOMS are getting better, but yes the ARM is still a bit better power wise.

That said, first chance i get i will get one of the UMID's (<6" Laptops running x86), i like arm but i would just love to have a mini x86 system, this is what im used to, for with WIN for 15+years and not linux.

One thing that could be very nice/funny would to have a NEW Motherboard designed for our N900, but this time with the newest and best power efficient ATOM CPU, it should be quick to have drivers and such running, it only needs to have drivers for screen and touchscreen, everything else is on the board, still it has to have all the stuff, IR, FM TX/RX.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

I'm not judging which platform is best. If ARM has reached the status of standard is the by the same reason x86 has reached the same status. Each one in its own area.

But the fact is that the way is open for a platform to finally compete where the other has been alone for years.

And

This system allows builders to create devices only by adding features to the core. If the hardware needed to have that features is driven by open source code, or at least by free code, developers and hackers could make that systems do what they want, and install, adapt or port whatever open source software they want.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

more then a victory for Intel, this looks rather like another game won for Google...
the 1st "smart phone" like device to come out with one of those CPUs is the Lenovo K800 which will run... ANDRoid 4.0 :rolleyes:
apart from Lenovo, Motorola is going to use the Medfield chips... guess what OS those will run :confused:
then again, this will make the field more even, giving each CPU architecture the same OS to compete with and the performances more comparable...

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Don't count on open GPU drivers on this new Intel architecture.

As its predecessors it uses a third party GPU provided by Imagination technologies (the same company responsible for the GPUs in N900,N950,N9 and many other devices). Concerning how open-source unfriendly Imagination is and what mess was the driver situation with Paulsbo (a prior Intel netbook/mobile architecture), it really doesn't look good - basically the same sitatation as with ARM - no problem using the CPU but no open GPU drivers. :)
You can find more info to this issue in this slightly chaotic Phoronix article.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

amen to that.

The most interesting hope has been that by having linux
on x86 we would have open source drivers for bits
from desktop hardware,
but your point is well taken.
Furthermore, there will probably be lockdown codes built
into more than just the bootloader in the future.
(Thinking communication lockdowns, gps firmware disables etc)

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Intel releases press release at trade show. Game Over, ARM!

No really. We signed an agreement and everything. Seriously guys. Look! we created a timeline and pie charts. Please. We mean it this time. Look at this artist's rende- err...I mean picture of a device.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

hopefully intel release a vanilla device

this all seems like a positive development, am hoping amd decides to enter the stronghold but id be happy with an intel phone

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

game on, more like it.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Huh? Isn't that what I just wrote? Why do you have to quote me?

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

For me, the important thing about this is that Intel sells chipsets, not devices.

With the atom chipset we've seen tablets, netbooks and other devices from more vendors you can think of, thanks to chinese manufacturers.

You can mount this Medfield thing on any thing you can think of, and you can put around it what you want, regarding companion chips for communications, networking or whatever.

You can start using it to sell educative computers for schools, like, for example, the Neo.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

A keyboard with tiny black and white text only display for 169$ ? And it doesn't seem to actually do anything. I'm underwhelmed! :D

For 25$ you can get the incomparably more powerful Raspberry Pi board and actually do something useful with it. Obtaining a second hand monitor and keyboard is left as an exercise for the reader, but should not be an issue.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

That is sadly not true, because Medfield does not necessarily come with BIOS or EFI. Or even a PCI bus. Windows would hardly run and GNU/Linux x86 would need a new "subarchitecture".

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Still, storing 40 "second hand monitors" in the class cupboard, or moving from class to class carying a 4 kg monitor (with a power cord..) just to take notes or write answers to a test does not look like an overwhelming idea to me either ;)

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

But if the board runs say Android, does that ensure that the necessary components for a standard Linux are there?

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Rather than the components for a standard Android are there.... exactly as what is happening now on ARM, you know.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

For me a Intel smartphone would be cool because it would make running your own version of a distribution a little bit easier.
Desktop distribution don't always support ARM yet, and when they do it usually isn't that well tested on the diverse hardware available. Also compiling packages in the native architecture is easier and faster, and having a Core i7 Desktop PC to compile anything for my phone does make that a lot more comfortable.

That said, running desktop software on a smartphone isn't always a good idea. For a proper user experience interactive applications mostly need to be rewritten with a different GUI. Also non-interactive software needs to be optimized for power consumption. That is something that works a bit differently in ARM and atom as far as I know (ARM puts entire parts of the CPU in idle state, Atom only throttles down afaik).

The most interesting aspect is the performance. The atom CPU performs very well in single threaded applications, but the current dual core Cortex A9 chips beat intel when multiple cores can be used or applications that use the GPU or can use a DSP (video decoding).

I know Intel will have multicore Atom on the way and improved GPU, but so does ARM with Cortex A15 and PowerVR series 6.
Let us see what the actual hardware will cost first :)

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Most obvious mistake in the Extremetech article is that he is assuming that competition stands still while Intel continues to develop better and better chips.

He also did not mention that some Android applications won't even work on x86 without recompiling. Most will probably work but applications that are using native code - such as some graphics intensive games - simply won't work. This will create even more fragmentation as already on my Galaxy S2 I cannot see all games on the market, for example (many require a Tegra2).

He also claims that chip manufacturers just license the core from ARM and churn out identical chips based on them. This is not true, in fact there can be big performance differences between two application processors even if they share the same core. For example, in OMAP4 there are two 32-bit DDR interfaces vs one on Tegra2.

He also claims that there is no competition today and that x86 will bring that into mobile space. This is also not true. Are TI, Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, Nvidia, Samsung & the rest all part of the same happy family? I don't think so! I have been working in the electronics industry for quite some time and the price of ARM-based application processors has been steadily going down. Already today you can get a Cortex-A8 based processor at below 10USD even in small volumes.

I don't dare predict what kind of market share Intel will be able to command in mobile space but I'm quite sure that it will not obliterate ARM in a matter of few years as the linked article suggests.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Just as an info point for you all...Windows as we now know it is built on Windows NT, which was cross-platform, supporting not only x86, but PowerPC, Alpha, MIPS, (and internally, Sparc). ...and that's just the 32-bit architectures. It also supported 64-bit Alpha and Itanium, and Windows 8 will support ARM.

...so it's not as bad in that regard as this thread makes out ;)

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

This Medfiled thing comprises a complete system in a chip, even the RAM.

Not so many years ago, an Intel cpu had the memory controller outside the cpu, opposite as AMDs, that had it inside it,at least in the package.

What ARM sells it's the core of the cpu. The different manufacturers added different things to that core: memory controllers, GPUs, sound controllers, touchscreen controllers... and packaged them in a single chip. That way, we have had all those different cpus trough the years.

An example of this are the Intel Core series, were in a single chip we had several cores, but not complete cpus. And in the recent Core i3, i5... units, we even had an integrated memory controller (a feature that AMD cpus have had for years) that wasn't there before.

In the PC world we have this Virtualbox virtual machine. It can be installed in OSX, in windows, linux, solaris, and bsd. And it can run many, if not almost all every x86 OS out there.

And why can do that? Because it's a virtual machine, but not a cpu emulator, like qemu. The fact that the OS of the host it's installed on, and the OS of the guest you want to run, is compiled to the same cpu, helps a lot.

So imagine that even if we don't have a bios or a efi, a properly compiled virtualbox from the open source edition, for a device made with this medfield chip, will be able to run windows, dos and other OS that rely on bios to properly run, and a higher speed, because, a last, it's a x86 cpu.

And if you think I'm wrong, take a look at this and this. Those are videos showing a htc hd2 running windows 95 and xp under cpu emulation.

The hd2 sports a qualcomm cpu, which is not a x86 cpu at all.

If a non-x86 cpu can do this, what can we expect from a x86 cpu?

I don't enter, I say, in what each one of us thinks about windows, linux, osx or whatever, but in the possibilities with this.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

I found the Ars Technica article on the subject very interesting.
And indeed, PowerVR SGX 540 GPU, so much for hoping for drivers... :(

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

ARM licenses the blueprint of the CPU, companies manufacture it and add other bits onto one die, i.e SoC.

PSP with a 333MHz MIPS processor runs Win95, 98, so what of it? If you wanna know what to expect, slap 95 and XP on an Atom netbook.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

What I meant was that if a non x86 could run Windows under cpu emulation, what could be done under cpu virtualization?

I know that tablets and smartphones are not the ideal hardware for desktop computing.

I know that those windows runnings are just a proof of concept that a real solution.

But it comes to my mind projects like XPlite, 98lite, nlite... Those tools allows to create your very own customized version of Windows, removing bloatware, and keeping things to minimum.

Maybe not everyone, specially in developers/power users/hackers area, wants to run Windows in their native x86 portable hardware, but many users will be more than happy if they have windows live messenger, microsoft office 97, and all those old but still functional apps while on the go - leaving aside what you and me think about them.

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

Intel ...making an Atom use less energy, and hoping to slap Android on it.
Good luck!

MaeOS + big.LITTLE computing would provide much more power at less energy consumption, but it doesn't matter as long as you market it correctly, right?

Re: Intel enters in smartphone market: Game Over for ARM.
 

An interesting difference between x86 and ARM regarding the platforms that will ship Windows (and there will be some.)