Intel's 32nm Atom roadmapped
Total SoC integration
Intel's 32nm Atom chip - aka 'Medfield' - has popped up on the chip giant's roadmap with a 2010 release window.
Current Atoms are fabbed at 45nm. Medfield will use the smaller transistor size to increase the level of on-die component integration, bring into the system-on-a-chip the I/O functionality currently relegated to the chipset in today's netbooks.
Today's 'Diamondville' Atoms are due to be superseded by 'Pineview' next year, a part based on the upcoming 'Lincroft' SoC, which will bring the memory controller and other components that are traditionally part of the system logic chipset into the processor package.
Lincroft is due to be accompanied by 'Langwell', an I/O chip. Essentially, Medfield is a merged Lincroft and Langwell. At this stage, it's unclear whether it's simply a die-shrink combo of those two parts or a substantial new design.
A report by investment house UBS Securities, cited by various websites, claims that Medfield will incorporate an Intel-designed graphics core.
Netbooks currently rely on the Intel-made GPU integrated into their chipset, but Intel's 'Poulsbo' chipset, designed to operate alongside Atoms aimed not at netbooks but at handheld internet tablets, is thought to use a PowerVR-derived graphics core designed by Imagination Technologies.
Designed for ARM-based gadgets, PowerVR is all about delivery graphical performance at low power consumption levels, and it's not hard to see Intel opting for such a product in devices designed to go head-to-head with ARM-based handhelds. At least until Intel can compete on power consumption, which it's busily trying to do but also hoping that the shift to 32nm will significantly help with.
Atom-based Netbook Reviews...
Asus N10 |
Dell Mini 9 |
RM MiniBook+ |
Advent 4211 |
COMMENTS
32nm
Intel may get power consumption down a notch with 32nm, but they'll only have a few months head start before ARM licences are using the same process, then the x86 chips will compare just as badly as against today's highly integrated ARM SoCs.
FrankenAtom
By 2010 a comparable performance ARM will be 1/5th the power consumption and 1/10th the price of Intel's FrankenAtom.
Already you can get a module that has size and footprint of a single chip, with Flash & RAM chips as two extra chips sandwidched in package. CPU then doen't need RAM /Flash bus on bottom BGA.
Price
Price price PRICE RICE ICE CE E EC EEC....
(Paris cos she's nice and doesn't need a price)
