Analyst: Intel Atom inside iPhone in 2010
Flight from Arm forecast
When a European Intel exec was recently said to have claimed future iPhones will use the chip giant's Atom processor, the company quickly stated the fellow alleged no such thing. But now someone else has made that very claim.
JoAnne Feeney, an analyst with US investment hours FTN Midwest Securities, recently told clients that the iPhone circa 2009/2010 will be Atom-based, Barron's Magazine blogger Eric Savitz notes.
What's suspicious here is the 2009-2010 timeframe, which is exactly when Intel has said the next generation of Atom, the 'Moorestown' chip, is set to appear. That suggests Feeney is basing her claim on the handset's debut solely on the forecast arrival of Moorestown rather than anything else.
She reckons Intel's Atom development programme is moving rapidly and is “well ahead of schedule”. Accordingly, she claims, 2009 will see the debut of a 45nm Moorestown, with a 32nm version following in 2010.
The 32nm Moorestown, cheaper and more power efficient than its predecessor, could find its way into the iPhone, she suggests.
Expect Intel to make more of the 32nm Moorestown at its Intel Developer Forum in August, she says.
Of course, what's not clear is why Feeney thinks Apple would migrate its Arm-based iPhone over to the x86 platform.
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COMMENTS
Midwest cluelessness
FTN *Midwest* Securities ... doesn't that say it all?!
If she's so clever....
I hope she signs up to help with the engineering...
She is pulling this out of her bottom as she clearly does not understand anything about hardware or software design.
For every move that Atom can do to save power (voltage reduction, process improvement...) ARM can do the same and just move the game. Atom will never catch ARM. While Atom is whooping about 4W, ARM is running at welll under 1W.
If anything, I expect to see the move go the other way: ARM displacing x86 from laptots. The only real reason to use x86 in laptots is to run Windows. Linux, OSX etc run perfectly well on a wide variety of architectures, including ARM, and if vendors don't want to run Windows they can cut x86 loose, getting cheaper, smaller, lighter systems.
capitalisation
It's ARM, not Arm. Initially Acorn RISC Machines, then Advanced RISC Machines, and now just abbreviated.
OS-X
"Of course, what's not clear is why Feeney thinks Apple would migrate its Arm-based iPhone over to the x86 platform."
Single OS-X code base?
Title should be
Another Analyst knows nothing about Mobile Platforms.
The PA Semi is more beleivable but still way behind ARM for phone sized devices.
