Business Tech

The settlement between Intel and Advanced Micro Devices isn't just a matter of business between companies.

Sure, it's a big financial deal when the biggest chipmaker in the world forks over $1.25 billion to its closest competitor. And the settlement, announced Thursday, officially puts an end to a five-year battle over licensing disputes and AMD's complaints of unfair competition.

Beyond that, there will also be an effect on the two chipmakers do business with PC makers, and how they price their chips. Still, the settlement won't likely foment major changes for consumers shopping for a new laptop or desktop.

Choice
AMD processors are readily available from most PC makers, the major exception being Apple. If you really wanted one before the settlement came along, it's not like you couldn't get an AMD-based machine in stores or online. Intel now has agreed basically to not punish PC makers that choose to put AMD chipsets in some of their machines, but that doesn't mean Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer, Apple, and others will suddenly want to use AMD's latest chip in their flagship products. AMD will probably continue to be used as the "value" option for PC makers looking to offer cheaper notebooks.

PC prices are already pretty low thanks to the Netbook movement brought on by Intel, Acer, and others.

(Credit: Acer)

That said, there is room for AMD to increase its share in processors used in laptops. The company has made improvements in that area recently, particularly in the ultrathin category, according to observers. So if you're paying attention, you might see more from AMD when shopping for a new laptop.

Prices
My colleague Brooke Crothers made an excellent observation last week, that Intel, while accused of dampening competition with AMD, has actually kept prices very low for consumers buying laptops. Thanks to the Netbook movement, which Intel spurred with its Atom chip starting in late 2007, the average price of the small, lightly featured Netbooks is now below $500. While not everyone is in the market for a Netbook, all shoppers have ended up benefiting. In order to recoup some of the lost profit due to the popularity of Netbooks, the industry--led by AMD and its consumer-ultra-low-voltage chips--has now focused on selling ultrathin laptops, which typically cost somewhere between $500 and $900.

Though one might assume that Intel and AMD hitting reset on their competition and going head to head would bring prices down, that's not likely. If anything, prices may actually go up a bit, said Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds.

"This [settlement] potentially means that products cost a little more to manufacture because we don't have this irrational competition between the two," he said. "[PC makers] won't be able to pit the two against each other as much."

Speed to market
What matter to consumers most are price and capability. What matters to Intel and AMD is getting faster, cheaper processors that enable better battery life in laptops into as many new computers as possible. The speed of this cycle is very important. The faster the two companies come out with new products, the more often people will go shopping for new laptops.

AMD's product road map has severely suffered in comparison to Intel's over the last several years. Intel whips out new products on a regular yearly schedule. A quick infusion of $1.25 billion from Intel should do a lot to help AMD fund new product design in order to better keep up. Again, there won't be a significant change immediately, but over time we may see their speed to market pick up, Gartner's Reynolds noted.

Besides money, the end of the legal squabbling also means that AMD is freed up from focusing on the lawsuits and what Intel has done wrong, and can help the company focus on the task at hand: making good products at reasonable prices. So if not directly, the settlement will at least indirectly benefit those looking for laptops and desktops at their local retailer or online.

Of course the vast majority of shoppers, outside of those tuned into technology, probably won't pay much mind to whether there's Intel or AMD inside the laptop as long as it meets their expectations, said analyst Michael Gartenberg.

The buying decision is actually very simple usually, he said. "Does it even matter anymore? It's about who's delivering the cool machines at the price that I want."

Best Buy is set to launch its lowest-advertised-price laptop to date--an Acer model based on Intel's venerable Celeron chip.

Acer laptop

(Credit: Best Buy)

Thought Netbooks were as low as a laptop's price can go? Another category of ultra-low-cost laptops has quietly emerged. These aren't small or ultra-thin or frugal with power consumption. There's nothing remarkable about these laptops--except price.

Best Buy said it will start selling on Wednesday the $249 Acer laptop--the retailer's lowest-advertised-price laptop ever. The laptop comes with an Intel Celeron processor, 15.4-inch screen, 2GB memory, a 160GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Premium. The model is available while supplies last.

Currently, the lowest-priced laptop listed on Best Buy's Web site is an Acer Aspire with an Advanced Micro Devices Athlon Processor (model: AS5532-553). On Tuesday, it was selling for $329.

Why the proliferation of low-cost laptops? "It's gone from one PC per household to one PC per person," said Justin Barber, a Best Buy spokesman. "And sometimes more than one laptop per person," he said, referring to Netbooks, which are marketed as companion devices to a higher-end PC.

At the core of the low-cost Acer laptop is an Intel Celeron Processor 900--not an Intel Atom chip, which is standard fare for sub-$300 Netbooks. The Celeron is a faster design than Atom: the 900 series packs 1MB cache of cache memory and is rated at 2.20GHz.

By comparison, the Z550 Atom is rated at 2.0GHz and integrates only 512K of cache. The Atom's performance is also hampered by fundamental design constraints: it is built for power efficiency not speed.

Netbooks continue to be the most popular low-cost laptop category, however. Best Buy lists dozens of Netbooks on its Web site from Hewlett-Packard, Asus, Samsung, Gateway, Nokia, Lenovo, and Toshiba, among others. Most are priced around $350.

Dell, Acer, Intel, and others together are, in effect, creating a muddle of light laptop categories as part of a not-so-well-orchestrated marketing strategy, according to an analyst. This is expected to become particularly acute when a deluge of new Windows 7 laptops hit the market this week.

Acer 11.6-inch ultrathin looks like a Netbook but it's not.

(Credit: Acer)

Acer offered a graphic example of this recently when it introduced a small, inexpensive Windows 7 notebook--the Aspire Timeline AS1810T--that, from all outward appearances, looks like a Netbook. But it isn't--at least as defined by Intel. It's a new category of laptop called an ultrathin.

"There's a lot of confusion that Intel has created and they haven't really segmented the market that well," according to Bob O'Donnell, an IDC Research vice president.

And it gets more complicated. The inexpensive ultrathin is, in turn, competing now with the expensive luxury laptops, like the Dell Adamo, according to O'Donnell. "Ironically, what's actually happening we think is that the (ultrathin) is actually killing the high-end ultraportable," O'Donnell said.

Here's the problem: any given Windows 7 laptop with an 11.6- or 12-inch screen could be a Netbook, an ultrathin, or a high-end ultraportable, each with distinctly different price-performance characteristics not readily apparent to consumers.

"There's too many overlapping products," according to O'Donnell. Intel tried to prevent this from happening by declaring that any laptop with a screen larger than 10 inches diagonally is not a Netbook. That policy is fine in theory but does not carry over to the real world of head-butting competition among PC makers where even the subtlest production differentiation can mean a leg up on the competition.

Intel says look at performance and price. "Which offers the best performance overall? That's important," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder. "Pricing is a factor too. While some ultrathin laptops including 11.6 and higher are very affordable, none are in the $249 to $399 range that typically defines a Netbook," Calder said.

Some consumers might say it's not a big deal. But ... Read more

Mainstream servers are growing increasingly brawny with multicore processors and tremendous memory capacity, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Intel Labs Pittsburgh think 98-pound weaklings of the computing world might be better suited for many of the jobs on the Internet today.

This first-generation FAWN system has an array of boards, each with its own processor, flash memory card, and network connection.

(Credit: Carnegie Mellon University)

The alternative the researchers advocate is named FAWN, short for Fast Array of Wimpy Nodes. It's described in a paper just presented at the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles.

In short, the researchers believe some work can be managed with lower expense and lower power consumption using a cluster of servers built with lower-end processors and flash memory than with a general-purpose server. And these days, with green technology in vogue and power costs no longer an afterthought, efficient computing is a big deal.

"We were looking at efficiency at sub-maximum load. We realized the same techniques could serve high loads more efficiently as well," said David Andersen, the Carnegie Mellon assistant professor of computer science who helped lead the project.

During Intel's earnings conference call on Tuesday, CEO Paul Otellini talked about the growth of notebook PCs versus Netbooks, and Windows 7 adoption in business, among other topics.

Otellini was quick to trumpet the fact that its mainstream notebook business beat Netbook growth. "We saw the sequential unit growth rate of notebook processors and chipsets actually exceed the growth rate of Atom processors and chipsets," he said.

Later in the call, Otellini said: "While Atom and Netbooks are important growth drivers for us, our traditional notebook business remains one of the primary drivers of revenue growth and we expect that to continue in the future."

Otellini, again in the call, expanded on this theme, adding that while Netbooks should see significant growth in 2010 over 2009, the notebook market is flourishing. "We're still bullish (on Netbooks) but what we've seen this quarter though is that the notebook market is alive and well and Netbooks are market-additive for Intel and the industry," he said. "Market-additive" is code for an ancillary product, not a mainstream product.

Intel CEO expects more attractive ultra-thin laptops in the coming months

(Credit: Intel )

He also addressed the new category of ultrathin laptops, which are inexpensive laptops--between $500 and $900--that slot in above Netbooks. "The bulk of the units that have shipped to date were single-core versions of the products. Late last quarter, we introduced the dual-core version of those products. You'll see a number of laptops show up in retail with the dual-core versions for the holiday season...more ergonomically designed, thinner, lighter."

Responding to analyst questions, Otellini also addressed Windows 7 adoption in business. "We see a lot of interest at corporations around Win 7 and the new Nehalem-based (PC models)," he said, referring to Intel's new Nehalem-based Core "i" series of processors. "They're made for each other in terms of the performance and power management and security characteristics."

He continued: "I would expect that the (corporate Windows 7) evaluation process will happen over the rest of this year and we'll start seeing corporate purchases on a refresh basis begin in 2010."

Here's a rundown of other comments:

• Consumer segment strong: "The strength in our business remains primarily consumer driven with broad-based demand across all geographies."--Otellini.
  
• Growth phase: Refuting a question about Intel becoming "smaller" next year: "We're finished with the cutting phase of our efficiency efforts and now in the growth phase of that efficiency efforts."--Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith.
  
• Inventory hubs: At large PC customers, component inventories levels are at roughly half of the peak level late last year and approximately flat throughout 2009. Intel has a better handle on inventories now using a mechanism called inventory hubs. "We hold the inventory for our large OEM customers, who then pull inventory only if needed...This give us increased visibility into real-time production levels."--Otellini
  
• Nehalem server processors: (dual-processor). "It's not so much an upgrade cycle that's driving the volume right now, it's economics of the data center. People are looking at swapping eight to nine older-generation servers for a single Nehalem server."--Otellini.
  

Doug Fisher

(Credit: Intel)

For Intel, the driving force behind its Moblin software efforts is its main role in life: a chipmaker.

At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco last month, the company showed off the latest version of its Linux-based Moblin operating system, designed for smartphones, Netbooks, and Nettops. In most if not all of those cases, the idea is that the device is built around Intel's Atom processor.

Moblin has been slowly catching on in the Netbook arena. Dell, for instance, recently began selling its $299 Mini 10v Notebook with an option for Ubuntu Moblin Remix, and PC makers such as Acer and Asus are also said to be planning Moblin-based Netbooks. Intel is also positioning Moblin 2.1 for all-in-one Nettop PCs, most of which--such as the Asus Eee Top and Dell's Studio One 19--currently run Windows XP.

I recently spoke by phone with Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager at Intel's System Software Division, about the upcoming latest version of Moblin.

Q: Can you tell me what's new in Moblin 2.1 version versus 2.0? What are some of the features and benefits that 2.1 will offer?
Fisher: The way I look at it, 2.1 is obviously an interim improvement over 2.0. So we have the beta release for the Netbooks out there now that people are playing with. We added an element called a Moblin Garage component. It gives the capability to allow developers to start putting applications in this developer store. It's really designed for putting [out] open-source or fully distributable applications or components of applications that developers can use.

Moblin 2.1 is going to be targeted not only for Netbooks but also moving into other form factors like mobile Internet devices or handheld devices, and in-car entertainment--we call that IVI [in-vehicle infotainment]. It's going to add things like 3G support, a connection manager, telephony framework. The input methods are going to be around touch capability and gesture, so we'll be adding those types of support in 2.1.

Version 2.1 is going to be used not only for Netbook and Nettops, but also for handheld form factors. For things like Nettops, we are working on ensuring the capability to support high-resolution screens. We're also looking at incorporating additional social networking support into the platform to continue evolving on the value proposition that Moblin is defined on.

Q: Are there going to be different versions of Moblin for each hardware platform or will it be basically the same operating system with just minor changes for the platform itself?
Fisher: I love when people ask that question because it really helps deliver the message we are trying to get out with this. The whole Moblin infrastructure is a unified stack across all Atom-based devices. All the form factors use the same operating system, offering environments with the same UI framework, the same application framework, the same core apps. So it's really a unified API across all the devices. The benefit of this is that all the optimizations for footprint, boot time, and battery life, all of that carries across all segments that use Atom at the core level. The UI framework and the applications are consistent across all those. Now that's not to say we don't optimize for form factor and input methods and things like that. But the core elements are consistent across all segments. So the idea is you deliver Moblin-compliant operating environments.

We have 17 OSVs [operating-system vendors] that have publicly committed to this, and I think seven to nine, somewhere in that range, have actually made product level commitments. Obviously, we've heard from Novell and Canonical and others. So, yes, it's the same. Really, it gives the OSVs a clear compliance to align behind Moblin, and more importantly the ISVs [independent software vendors] a standard API set to write to in order to ensure their application can be portable across any Moblin-compliant operating environment.

Q: From the consumer point of view, if somebody is running Moblin on a Netbook, a Nettop, and a smartphone, are they going to see a similar UI and similar usability across the different devices, or will that depend more on the manufacturer and what they do with Moblin?
Fisher: One of the big benefits of Moblin is that the UI is customizable. If you're talking about the Nettop and the Netbook space, you are going to see very, very consistent usage criteria for all those devices. So what the "myzone" looks like on a Nettop will be very consistent with the Netbook. It's customizable, so who ever wants to, an OEM or service provider, can create their branding and imaging and add other capabilities. But the idea is when a user participates with a Netbook or Nettop, it's a very familiar engagement, so it's going to be consistent. We also expect in the handheld space that there will be a lot of consistencies across those devices as well. With that said, manufacturers are going to want to really customize, and it's possible to do that within the UI framework.

Q: I want to talk a little bit about Dell because I know they just came out with a version of their Mini 10v Netbook running [Canonical's] Ubuntu Moblin Remix. What does that refer to? Is that just taking Moblin and coming up with their own customized version? Can you explain what Dell is actually running on their new Netbook?
Fisher: At the highest level, Dell is running Moblin. Moblin is a pure open-source project. It's all open source, so what we rely on is an OSV, like Canonical, to deliver a productized version of the Moblin project. And so what you see in Remix is Canonical's release of the Moblin platform. It's a pure Moblin play, 100 percent aligned with the user interface we described, API-compatible. But they add a lot of value in productizing it, adding other elements that the OEM wants, customizing it.

Q: Can you then talk a little bit about Dell and other notebook vendors looking to run Moblin? What expectations does Intel have for this adoption of Moblin in the notebook market?
Fisher: If you look over the past year and a half, there's been a lot of activities by the OEMs using Linux with Moblin capabilities. But what Moblin has brought is the unification of those capabilities into the release of version 2.0. And what you see from Canonical working with Dell is a unified release. It really is a much more substantial commitment from Canonical and all the other OSVs around this. So what Dell has done is they've released their Mini with [Moblin] to the developer community. The expectation is that in combination with what was announced at IDF, the developer store Intel Atom Developer Program, with platforms from Dell, we really think it's going to drive a lot of innovation around Atom-based devices, in particular around the Moblin development environment. And so down the line, we expect to see OEMs delivering consumer devices as well.

Q: When you think of Linux, you traditionally think of it of it as an operating system that has been adopted more by IT people, technophiles, etc. What do you think has held back the adoption of Linux and what can Intel do to further Linux along so it becomes more of a mass market operating system and not just a niche player?
Fisher: I think there are a couple of things. When you talk about the consumer-visible things like Netbooks, clearly Microsoft is doing great work, and they're delivering a substantial portion of the Nettops and the Netbooks. We had three main areas that we had been driving requirements around, which is Internet usage, media consumption, and social networking. Those are really the three design points Moblin is focused around--that type of device. It's really a different usage experience. What you described is really true. Educating the user to make them comfortable with this type of environment is important, and what they do with this device after they get it is critical.

I also want to say that Linux is absolutely mainstream across many devices. Set-top boxes, TiVo, all these electronics are loaded with embedded Linux. So it's just not visible. It's not merchandized or marketed. But Linux is extremely mainstream across many, many devices today.

Q: Can you describe a bit about the Nettop arena and how Moblin can take advantage of that market, and perhaps what some of the challenges are there?
Fisher: I think at a high level, the usage model is very, very similar to the Netbook. The actual design concept for the Netbook is being scaled because of the screen resolutions to take advantage of the larger screen resolution. The difference in my mind is more around input methods and the resolution of the screen. So there's a lot of innovation going on around the touch and gesture activities on the Nettop. I expect to see manufacturers in the future delivering the Moblin-type capabilities on these devices, as well as the media-phone-type devices and other things that really require an input method like a touch or gesture.

Q: You mentioned before there are already some Nettops running Moblin. Can you talk a little about that?
Fisher: Back in, I think, 2008, there was a big push to deliver Nettops by the OEMs, primarily in Taiwan. What we did was we inserted Moblin's capabilities into the releases, so that when these devices went out into the market, they had the Moblin technology, and capabilities were already available in them. We really dramatically reduced the power consumption with some techniques that we had driven into the Moblin project. We had boot-time capabilities that we had been working aggressively on. We made sure that they were incorporated into those releases. Fundamentally, those devices were released with Moblin technologies, and as I've said, now we've built a Moblin-compliant set of specifications, nearly completed, which really unifies and documents those things. And Moblin version 2 is where that really came together.

Q: What would Intel like to see from vendors and manufacturers?
Fisher: At Intel, our goal is to ensure that Netbooks, handheld devices, Nettops--all these are shipping with Atom. That's our pure goal. We want to be sure we ship Atom platforms. In order to do that, we have to have the best experience. Whether it's Windows or if it's Moblin, it doesn't matter to me.

Q: How does that play into Intel's working relationship with Microsoft in terms of what operating system ends up on these different platforms?
Fisher: At the highest level, we have a great relationship with Microsoft. They're delivering a wonderful operating environment. We're all looking forward to Windows 7. So there's no competition. The only competition we see is ensuring that as a hardware platform company, that we win in the platform space. So it's all about winning the Atom platform. We work very closely with Microsoft to ensure that Intel Architecture [IA] is optimized, that they take full advantage of the architecture and we take full advantage of the capability they deliver. And as the platform of choice, we're going to ensure the same thing when the Linux environment is chosen.

Q: Obviously one challenge of any operating system is getting people to write applications for it. Can you talk about the Atom Developer Program and your goals with it?
Fisher: On a high level, it's really about generating excitement around innovating on Atom. We think that by putting the development platform out there, we're going to get developers to innovate around these specific Atom platforms and then have a mechanism to monetize their efforts. And that's critical to creating demand in the ecosystems. So regardless of whether we're developing on Windows or Moblin, we want to see innovation. So we announced the ability to develop native Moblin applications. We have an SDK to develop natively to Moblin. Windows has always had a very strong presence in the development platform.

Q: I had read something about Moblin 2.0 supporting Android applications. Is that correct at this point?
Fisher: No, there are no plans for that.

Q: I had read some stories at one point that they're looking at supporting Android apps?
Fisher: There was a technology demonstration--open-source projects. There's a lot of innovation going on. But there's no product commitment. It's all community-type stuff. I think Ubuntu is doing some stuff.

Q: As far as the mobile device and notebooks as well, obviously Android is the other prominent player as far as open source on those different platforms. How does Intel see the arena between Moblin and Android? Is that an area of competition or more a peaceful co-existence between the two? Do you think the market can support both environments or is one going to have to be dominant over the other?
Fisher: It's a big market. Our focus at Intel, we're just maniacal on delivering the best platform for Atom, in this case the Atom version of our architecture. I'm focused on that. The Moblin effort is 100 percent focused from an Intel perspective. It's an open-source project. Our Intel effort is all around delivering the rich Internet experience, media consumption, social networking for these types of devices. A popular choice for Atom-based platforms is Moblin. So we are going to optimize the heck out of that. It's not about competition. For me, it's about selling Atoms. It's about us delivering the best experience on our Atom platform so that they sell.

Q: Moblin [2.1] is in a trial or beta stage right now. When is 2.1 scheduled to officially hit the market as a final release?
Fisher: Well, to hit the market is kind of a question for the OSVs and the OEMs. They are really the ones that productize and finalize it. From a community effort, we are expecting 2.1 capabilities in the October time frame for Netbooks so that then they can be productized. And then later on, late this year, first of next year, for the handheld-type devices, you'll see capabilities in the communities to productize those. We are really driving a timed market around our Moorestown platform for those types of things for 2.1.

Intel will accelerate development of the Atom processor, according to an executive, marking a different tack than the slow-but-steady strategy to date.

The Atom chip is used most prominently in Netbooks, and its hallmark has been power efficiency--not speed. But Intel will put more focus on speed, according to Sean Maloney, an Intel executive vice president.

"We'll spin Atom more frequently. Do more like a tick-tock on Atom. Make it faster, faster, faster," said Maloney in an interview at Intel Developer Forum last week.

The tick-tock Maloney refers to is Intel's strategy for its mainstream processors: one year--the tick--Intel delivers new manufacturing process technology; the next year--the tock--it delivers a new processor microarchitecture.

Atom is slated to get its biggest makeover to date with a technology code-named Pine Trail, due at the end of this year--or early next year, at the latest. This will put the graphics function directly on the central processing unit, or CPU--a first for Intel.

And what does this single-chip processor-graphics combination mean? "Better battery life. But performance more than anything," Maloney said.

Intel executive vice president Sean Maloney

(Credit: Stephen Shankland, CNET News)

Intel will likely ratchet up processor speeds. The Netbook-based Atom chip has been holding steady at about 1.6GHz for more than a year.

Another way to boost Atom's performance is to add processing cores. Currently, however, there are no plans to make Atom dual-core, at least not in the immediate future for the low-power Netbook market. Intel already sells a relatively power-hungry dual-core Atom for tiny desktop PCs called Nettops.

"We don't currently have plans to introduce dual-core Atom processors for Netbooks. But we will base our product road map on market needs," Intel said in a statement Monday.

This would be a tough call for Intel, as it now walks a fine line between Netbook and notebook processors. Intel already has very power-efficient dual-core notebook processors such as the Ultra-Low-Voltage Pentium SU4100 and Core 2 Duo SU7300.

These chips are now used in so-called "ultrathin" laptops that claim up to 10 hours of battery life. But these are different processor architectures and, at least theoretically, would not be able to achieve the power efficiency of a dual-core Atom. Nor would they be used in laptops as inexpensive as Netbooks.

Eric Kim of Intel shows how Intel has shrunk the size of the chip (L) from the previous generation of silicon

(Credit: Stephen Shankland, CNET News)

SAN FRANCISCO--A system-on-a-chip for TVs introduced Thursday at the Intel Developer Forum heralds a new generation of silicon from Intel.

The CE4100 packs a number features onto one piece of silicon--the same design goal for future Intel chips that will be used in smartphones and Netbooks. The chip is designed to bring Internet content and services to digital TVs, DVD players, and advanced set-top boxes, said Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager, Intel Digital Home Group, in his keynote at IDF 2009 here Thursday.

Integration is the chip's strong suit. In addition to an Atom processor, the chip integrates a graphics processor, display processor, silicon for decoding for MPEG4 video, networking technology, and many of the typical connectors--such as USB and Serial ATA (SATA)--found on a PC. Intel says the chip can decode up to two 1080p video streams.

Intel is looking to catch the large wave of content moving to the Internet. Malachy Moynihan, vice president for video product strategy in the Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group, who gave a presentation as part of Kim's keynote, said his company has now delivered 50 million set-top boxes, adding that high-resolution video, 3D graphics, and high-performance processors are becoming increasingly important as content becomes more multimedia rich.

Adobe Systems was also part of the keynote. Adobe Flash Player 10 will run on the new Intel silicon to "enable for the first time a wide array of Flash-based content on the television," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of Adobe's Platform Business Unit.

And Intel is working with CBS on a new TV widget platform designed to help people discover programs that are relevant to their interests, according to George Schweitzer, president of CBS Marketing. (Editors' note: CNET News is published by the media company's CBS Interactive unit.)

The CE4100 chip is sampling to customers now.

As Intel readies its most potent chip yet for small devices, Apple may already be using competing technology.

Apple iPhone 3GS processor

(Credit: iFixit)

One of the themes of the upcoming Intel Developer Forum (starting Tuesday) will be the chip giant's foray into the smartphone and mobile Internet device (MID) markets. Intel's current Atom chip is fine for Netbooks but has had little impact on MIDs and zero impact on smartphones, where it is simply too power hungry to be usable.

Enter Moorestown. A much more power efficient Atom chip, due by 2010, that should find its way into high-end LG smartphones, MIDs from Asian device makers, and tablets (from HP? Dell?).

Just so happens that Apple is doing analogous chip development. When Apple acquired chip design firm P.A. Semi in March 2008 it got a team of very capable engineers that, almost certainly, are designing silicon for future iPhones, iPods, and tablets (or "media pads"--choose your nomenclature).

But it's really not even necessary to speculate about the future. The Apple chip has already arrived (see photo). Some analysts believe that the Apple-branded chip in the iPhone is a fairly unique design and that Apple is simply using Samsung as a chip "foundry" or manufacturer. That would mean Apple is already competing with Intel's Atom, not to mention the host of ARM chip suppliers such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm.

And where might Apple supply its own silicon in the future? Beyond the iPhone--where Intel clearly has nothing to offer currently--there's the expected emerging tablet and MID markets. Make the iPod touch's screen a few inches bigger diagonally, add a few more features and you theoretically have a MID. (Some, of course, will argue that the iPod is already a MID/media player.) Make the screen even bigger (8 to 10 inches), give it more compute and graphics horsepower, and add a few more software and hardware bells and whistles, and you theoretically have a next-generation Apple tablet and/or media pad.

Those are all markets where Intel's Moorestown (and, later, Medfield) will compete.

Apple has a current market capitalization of about $165 billion (Intel's is about $110 billion). Two heavyweights with two competing visions of small devices. Will one of the big battlegrounds of the future be Apple tablets versus Intel-based tablets? Or--perish the thought--an Apple Netbook using an Apple chip instead of an Intel Atom? It's tantalizing to speculate.

And 2010 is just around the corner. It should be an interesting year for fresh new device designs and equally interesting competition between two computer industry Goliaths.

Note: Here's the official Intel description of Moorestown: "Intel's second-generation MID platform, which consists of a System on Chip (codenamed 'Lincroft') that integrates a 45nm Intel Atom processor core, graphics, video and memory controller. The platform also includes an input/output (I/O) hub, codenamed 'Langwell,' that includes a range of I/O blocks and supports wireless solutions.

(See: CNET Reporters Roundtable discussion of IDF and other Intel topics.)