The first smartphone featuring an Intel (INTC) Medfield Atom processor will go on sale on...

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IncomeYield Comments (1199)
 
Forget about it! AAPL has won here.

This is like Word and WordPerfect. We all just want one smartphone to use, support, and maintain and we don't really care from whom.

This is maybe Hertz and Avis, but doubtful since the smartphone is more like a utility now. Can't have utility lines and poles running everywhere.

Smartphone and tablet platform = AAPL. Period.

Low end, pure cell phones are different animals.
20 Apr 2012, 01:52 PM Reply Like

rkave06 Comments (12)
 
OK, but don't get mad!
20 Apr 2012, 01:54 PM Reply Like

Losing Paper While Gaining ... Comments (490)
 
Who is this "we" you speak of? Me and other non-apple users disagree.
20 Apr 2012, 02:09 PM Reply Like

cbc Comments (410)
 
Tell your OPINION to Samsung who sells more smartphones than AAPL, and Google who has 53% of the global smartphones running Android.
20 Apr 2012, 02:29 PM Reply Like

stockpicker2010 Comments (34)
 
Any idea how many Android app store apps - typically compiled for ARM - run on this new phone?
20 Apr 2012, 02:07 PM Reply Like

SA Editor Eric Jhonsa Comments (563)
 
Since Android apps run off a Java virtual machine, app compatibility probably shouldn't be an issue in most cases. Though optimization might be.
20 Apr 2012, 02:19 PM Reply Like

stockpicker2010 Comments (34)
 
Vendors are not making compatibility claims. Since android has a fragmentation problem and apps don't easily run on other arm android devices, seems hard to believe compatibility exists on a new CPU. Apparently, game apps are cross platform ports that take advantage of native code subroutines, in this case arm.
23 Apr 2012, 09:27 AM Reply Like

Losing Paper While Gaining ... Comments (490)
 
The fragmentation "problem" is a myth that analysts see and users don't. No one complained when there were choices of PCs over the locked down system of macintoshes back in the day.

Choice is a great thing, and if you've used an older iPhone with a newer version of iOS you'd understand that Apple hasn't exactly figured out backwards compatibility whilst at the same time maintaining that snappy interface those same phones had when new.
23 Apr 2012, 11:53 AM Reply Like

Russ Fischer Comments (1128)
 
Intel wins all the beans on mobile

http://bit.ly/IQkO57
20 Apr 2012, 02:32 PM Reply Like

Losing Paper While Gaining ... Comments (490)
 
That article reads that intel chips use less power than ARM chips, "The Intel device would also be much higher performance and much lower power" but that hasn't been the case up to now. I think that's the one think that *could* stand in Intel's way.

Do you have any info on whether or not these newer chips actually do use less power? I couldn't find anything to back that up, with a quick search.
20 Apr 2012, 03:10 PM Reply Like

blueblood Comments (33)
 
Nice article, but the author is a bit misplaced about AMD's foundry sale. The company that bought the foundry from AMD is affiliated to an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund,ie government owned. Abu Dhabi is flush with petro-dollars and can easily put up a loan to upgrade or build new facilities. This same sovereign wealth fund owns a substantial share of AMD.
Granted, they still are behind Intel's 22.
20 Apr 2012, 03:10 PM Reply Like

J.D. Welch Comments (1769)
 
From what I've read, the current Medfield Atom chips are "as good" as current smartphones on the market, as in "equal to" in terms of power consumption. Medfield is fabricated at the 32nm node, while Intel's next generations of chips will be on 22nm. Ivy Bridge, which is not an Atom product but a Core i3/5/7 product, is 22nm and should be out any week now. Not sure when the next Atom chips at 22nm will hit the streets, but certainly by sometime in 2013. Oh, and at 22nm, Intel is using Tri-Gate 3D transistors, which increase the power reduction and increase performance, so at 22nm Tri-Gate, it's a double-whammy win for Intel. The other fabs haven't been able to ramp up yield effectively at 28nm, so, what does that tell you about where Intel will be in the mobile market by the end of 2013? Be patient; that's the essence of investing.

Long INTC... :-)
20 Apr 2012, 04:39 PM Reply Like

Russ Fischer Comments (1128)
 
The Ivy bridge will have its formal introduction tomorrow at 9:00PT. This is where the actual electrical specifications will be discussed.
I've heard rumors (remember RUMORS) that the Ivy Bridge has idle (quiescent, standby) power of 20 mW. If that is anywhere near true, tomorrow will be the beginning of a long, painful re-pricing of ARMH.
Figure the Ivy Bridge without the good GPU is about a billion transistors. The stand alone Atom is about 49 million transistors. In a mobile SoC configuration the Atom would be about 20% of the total chip area (number of transistors), so the SoC would be about 250 million transistors. That means we could expect An Intel 22nm, Trigate, Atom based mobile SoC to have an idle power spec of 5mW. That chip would be about 25 times the size of the periods in this comment. That would be 3000 parts per wafer or about $1 cost per chip. That would compare to a manufacturing cost for the 45nm Apple A5X of about $10 at Samsung.
Who do you suppose will win this shootout?

22nm will make these chips so small that I worry about them being "pad limited". This is where the number of connection pads dictates the periphery dimensions of the chip and therefore the area of the chip. When this happens the manufacturer can put more function on the chip for no additional cost. Maybe we get a high horsepower SoC from Intel with 10 million FPGA gates that are free of cost to Intel.
22 Apr 2012, 12:19 PM Reply Like

J.D. Welch Comments (1769)
 
Nice... :-)
22 Apr 2012, 08:02 PM Reply Like