The Federal Trade Commission needs to do a better study of Intel and chip the market before it pulls the trigger with a veritable scattershot of last-minute accusations.
In addition to the FTC's litany of charges against Intel relating to the chipmaker's alleged anticompetitive behavior in the central processing unit, or CPU, market for PCs, the FTC document also refers to "Intel's unfair methods of competition...and future competition in the relevant GPU (market)." GPUs, or graphics processing units, and CPUs comprise the two main processors in all PCs.
A more thoughtful, studied, and contemporaneous analysis by the FTC would reveal that future personal computing markets are not so much about graphics chips--which is the basis of its new found emphasis on Nvidia as the object of Intel bullying and misbehavior--but about small mobile devices. And here Intel faces a raft of competition and is at least a year behind its rivals.
And that includes Nvidia, whose tiny Tegra processor is already in the Microsoft Zune HD and the Samsung M1 and whose next-generation Tegra 2 chip will be in dozens more handheld devices and smartphones. Intel's current offerings in this space? Zero.
Nvidia's Tegra processor is based on the same ARM design that other competitors use such as Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung, Apple, and Freescale Semiconductor use. And which Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said is expected to account for half of Nvidia's business in a few years.
Unbelievably, the only reference to ARM in the FTC complaint is: "Another example of a non-x86 microprocessor architecture is ARM. ARM is used primarily in handheld devices and mobile phones." One sentence in a 20-plus page document seems oddly dismissive, as though ARM was practically irrelevant to future chip market competitive dynamics as relates to Intel. Especially when you look at it in the context that that FTC is referring to the world's most popular consumer chip architecture--that is, ARM.
How large is this exploding market today? The ARM processor market totaled well over 2 billion units shipped in 2008. The "x86" PC chip market, where Intel and Advanced Micro Devices compete, a fraction of this--a few hundred million.
"The growing market is...a whole swath of interconnected devices and Intel doesn't have much a presence there," said the CEO of ARM Warren East in an interview I had with him recently in Los Angeles. And he accurately asserted that ARM can either match or exceed Intel in market clout and spending because it works, to some extent, in concert with the manufacturers--like TI, Nvidia, Samsung--that collectively have a massive revenue stream to tap into for marketing and research and development. "Well, actually there's about $25 billion of ARM semiconductor revenue coming in through the front door. So, it isn't Intel versus ARM, it's Intel versus everybody else," he said.
And if there is any truth to the Google Netbook rumors, ... Read more
Intel on Thursday previewed new Core processors and graphics technology that will become the pillar of its mainstream chip offerings.
As reported previously, Intel said it will roll out new Intel Core i processors on January 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including the new i3 chip. These will be based on 32-nanometer technology for the first time. The smaller the geometry, the faster and more power-efficient the processor. Intel's main CPU processors are currently based on 45-nanometer technology.
Intel will introduce 17 new processors in all.
And the chipmaker restated the Core i series lineup. The i7 is its the top-of-the-line processor, the i5 is the midrange, and the new i3 will be the low end.
Intel also discussed its upcoming integrated graphics technology for laptops, which has been referred to as "Arrandale." This will be the first mainstream Intel laptop processor to integrate two processor cores and a graphics function in a single chip package, to deliver better overall power efficiency.
The graphics silicon is based on 45-nanometer technology for the first time, Intel said. The technology will also support Blu-ray playback, and Intel claimed that it is capable of "mainstream gaming."
Intel's integrated graphics chip technology is a focus of the Federal Trade Commission's complaint filed on Wednesday.
Intel is also moving its "Turbo Boost" technology into more Core i5. Turbo Boost speeds up and slows down individual cores to meet processing and power-efficiency needs, respectively.
Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang issued an internal memo today to employees, calling the legal action by the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday an event that could potentially "transform the computer industry."
The memo follows:
Hi everyone,
The U.S. government announced today that it has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel. This is an action the industry needs and one that consumers deserve. And it's one that can completely transform the computer industry.
The facts are clear. The FTC has charged that Intel has used its monopoly illegally to stifle innovation, to keep prices for their products inflated, and to unfairly block competitors. The FTC believes that millions of consumers have paid more and received less quality in return--and that companies and their employees have been forced out of markets where Intel has been threatened.
Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang
Intel is fully aware that great graphics have become one of the most important features for consumer PCs, the fastest-growing segment of the PC market. Even more alarming to Intel is the revolutionary parallel computing technology in our GPUs that is being adopted by software developers across the world. The more successful we became, the bigger threat we were to Intel's monopoly. Instead of creating competitive GPU solutions and competing on the merits of their products, Intel has resorted to unlawful acts to stop us. The FTC announced today that this isn't acceptable.
Nothing this complicated gets decided quickly. It will take months for the FTC case to be heard by an administrative judge who will then recommend a ruling back to the FTC. And it's possible that this decision could be appealed. But today is a huge step forward for all of us that will begin to re-level the playing field.
Today's FTC announcement highlights the industry-changing impact of the GPU and the importance of our work. Our innovation is making the PC magical and amazing again. I can now imagine the day when Intel can no longer block consumers from enjoying our creation and experience computing in a way we know is possible.
Keep innovating...
Jensen
The Federal Trade Commission's complaint against Intel for alleged anticompetitive practices has a new twist: graphics chips.
To date, the antitrust actions of regulators worldwide toward Intel have focused on sale practices for central processing units, or CPUs, a market over which the company has fought heavily with Advanced Micro Devices. On Wednesday, however, the FTC spelled out a litany of allegations about Intel's alleged anticompetitive behavior in the market for graphics-processing units, or GPUs, in which Nvidia is a major player.
Nvidia is the world's leading supplier of "discrete," or standalone, graphics chips but takes a distant second place in overall market share to Intel, which supplies "integrated" graphics built into the chipsets that accompany all of its processors. Mercury Research estimates the total market for graphics chips, including integrated graphics, at almost $10 billion in 2009.
Why graphics, and why now? "It would be really hard to sell the public on expending resources to take Intel through administrative proceedings when it had already paid over a billion dollars to AMD," said Joshua D. Wright, a professor at George Mason University School of Law and a scholar in residence at the Federal Trade Commission until 2008.
"[The FTC] needed to be seen as doing something new," Wright said.
"[Nvidia] becomes the remaining star witness, now that AMD has left the field," said Roger Kay, principal at Endpoint Technologies. "And the FTC's focus, which begins to look toward the future, has to take into account how graphics will fit in as computer technology develops," Kay said.
Intel General Counsel Doug Melamed asserted in a statement that the FTC complaint "is based largely on claims that the FTC added at the last minute and has not investigated," referring to the GPU allegations. And Melamed added in a conference call that some of these GPU allegations were made as recently as December 8.
One of the areas the FTC case zeroes in on is the burgeoning competition for chipsets in Netbooks--small, inexpensive laptops that are typically priced around $350. Netbooks are powered by Intel's Atom processor--and integrated graphics silicon built into the chipset. In this market, Nvidia also sells its Ion chipset, which competes with Intel's integrated graphics product.
... Read moreThe Google phone may use what is probably the fastest smartphone chip on the planet and could become the first non-Windows smartphone to tap into this kind of processing power.
Conspicious among the Google phone's leaked specifications is the Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm. Snapdragon is the first gigahertz-class ARM-based processor to be used in smartphones. (In current implementations, Snapdragon runs at 1GHz.)
The Google phone's Snapdragon processor is one of the fastest smartphone chips.
(Credit: Cory O'Brien via Twitter)And the Google phone (aka, Nexus One) would--if it becomes an actual product--have some interesting company, though both of the rival phones that use the chip are in the Windows Mobile camp: the Toshiba TG01 and HTC HD2.
Interestingly, all of these phones have, relatively speaking, large screens: more than four inches in diagonal size. The Google phone will also add high-resolution (based on an OLED touchscreen) to that.
What's the big picture on all of this? Smartphones are getting larger and more like small tablets (or "media pads"--which is really a more apt description) and their functionality is becoming more akin to personal computers. So, faster processors are necessary (let's not forget Nvidia's Tegra chip or Texas Instrument's OMAP processor) to handle the increasing hardware and software workloads.
Sort of sounds like the old PC mantra. Bigger, better, faster. Bigger storage/memory capacities, better (increasingly sophisticated) operating systems, and faster processors. Which is why Intel is sprinting as fast it can to get its "x86" PC architecture into smartphones. But this market is going to be a hard one to crack for Intel, no matter how much it wows device makers with its technology and marketing clout.
Look no further than Microsoft for proof. Despite its size and status, it is currently losing the smartphone (Windows Mobile) mindshare (and market share) battle to the Apple iPhone. And prospects won't improve with the emergence of devices--such as the Motorola Droid and Google Phone--based on Google's Android operating system, not to mention other popular platforms such as the BlackBerry.
The bottom line is that silicon competition will be varied and vigorous in the smartphone market--unlike the PC space. Which makes the unveiling of every new major smartphone all the more interesting.
Updated on December 15 at 2:20 p.m. PST: adding changes to reflect that it is not yet officially known whether a Google-branded phone would be a commercial product--though a number of reports claim such a phone will be sold next year.
Intel is about to roll out some pretty impressive mobile processors, finally bringing its "Nehalem" Core i architecture to the mainstream mobile space. So, what can we expect from Apple?
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First, a little recent history. Apple, so far, has elected not to use the Core i7 quad-core mobile processors announced back in September in its MacBook Pro line. Which isn't that surprising. The first crop of laptop i7s barely qualify as mobile processors: they have a desktop-like TDP (thermal design power) of 45 watts that wreaks havoc on battery life.
That said, as an example of what an Apple rival has chosen to do, the Hewlett-Packard Envy 15 now offers both the i7-720QM (1.6GHz, 6MB cache) and i7-820QM (1.73GHz, 8MB Cache)--both quad-core Core i7 processors.
A big imponderable is whether Apple will adopt a future 32-nanometer version of the quad-core mobile i series for the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Presumably, this would have a lower TDP and be more amenable to Apple.
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Now, for some armchair analysis. Arrandale: One of the burning questions (at least among some in the tech media) is whether new MacBooks will use Intel's "Arrandale" mobile Core i series of processors. Arrandale is significant for two reasons: it is part of Intel's 32-nanometer chip roll-out and is the first instance of Intel combining the graphics function with the main "CPU" processor. This results in better overall power efficiency and integrated graphics performance that "doesn't suck" anymore, as some observers have put it.
One school of thought is that Apple will not use the processor. If there is any truth to that rumor, that makes for a head-scratching scenario since Arrandale will be the pillar of the mobile Core i3 and i5 lineups. A likely scenario is that Apple--one way or another--chooses to attach Nvidia or ATI discrete graphics processors to Arrandale, or a facsimile thereof.
Nvidia or ATI: And speaking of Nvidia and ATI, instead of trying to second-guess Apple on all of the possible graphics chip permutations, the easier question to ask is: which graphics chip supplier will prevail this time around? Nvidia--despite defects in some of its past offerings--has been dominant over the last year or so across the MacBook lineup. Will this continue? Or will Apple strike more of a balance between Nvidia and ATI?
Remember, that Apple is touting the general compute function of the graphics processing unit, or GPU, in OS X Snow Leopard. "Now a new technology in Mac OS X Snow Leopard called OpenCL takes the power of graphics processors and makes it available for general-purpose computing," according to Apple ad copy. (Translation: using the GPU more like general-purpose CPU.) Are Nvidia and ATI OpenCL equals?
MacBook Air: And what, pray tell, will happen to the MacBook Air? Which is coming up on its second anniversary in January. I won't venture a guess (not yet at least), though I have a personal interest in this subject since I have been using an Air since February 2008.
Blu-ray: And finally, next-generation optical drives. Will MacBook Pros finally get Blu-ray? Maybe. There seems to be some pessimism about Apple adopting Blu-ray, as reader comments (and threads on other forums) suggest.
Apple, in all of its wisdom, will provide the answers to these questions soon enough.
Updated at 6:05 p.m. PST: adding Blu-ray discussion.
On December 17, Intel will preview new processors for laptops, among other chip technologies.
The preview is significant because it will be Intel's first chance to show off its ready-to-ship, commercially viable next-generation 32-nanometer technology. Almost all Intel processors are currently built on a 45-nanometer process. Generally, the smaller the geometry, the faster and more power efficient the processor is.
Intel's Core i series of processors will be the focus of the San Francisco event that will serve as a venue to preview and demonstrate products to be rolled out at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The "Nehalem" microarchitecture that powers the Core i chips was introduced in November of last year and is considered a major step up in performance over previous architectures. To date, Intel has shipped the high-end Core i7 for gaming machines and mid-range Core i5 processors.
Intel is expected to preview the first Core i3 processors--some, including the 2.93GHz i3 530, have appeared on retail sites already--as well as updates to the Core i5 series.
One of the most anticipated processor technologies is "Arrandale." This will be the first mainstream Intel laptop processor to put two processor cores and a graphics function together in one chip package, resulting in better overall power efficiency. And the new built-in graphics technology is expected to offer materially better graphics performance than current Intel graphics.
Arrandale will eventually come under the Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 brands, though initial versions are expected to appear as the Core i3 and i5.
Intel is also expected to make a push to get its Turbo Boost technology into more Core i5 and i7 processors--including Arrandale i5 models. Turbo Boost speeds up and slows down individual cores to meet processing and power-efficiency needs, respectively.
Separately, Intel is also getting ready to roll out new Atom chip technology for Netbooks, commonly referred to as "Pine Trail." That is also happening later this month.
Intel's checkered past on some large projects means the chipmaker must prove that Larrabee isn't a development flub that will simply be kept on life support for the next few years.
An Intel session on Larrabee technology in 2008 when hopes were high.
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)As reported last week, Intel's Larrabee graphics chip was killed as an initial product offering after protracted delays, demonstrating that as successful as Intel is, it's not immune to major product missteps.
If certain product histories are any indication, the challenge could be daunting. Intel's XScale processor for small devices--which was used in Compaq handhelds back in 2000--was sold off to Marvell in 2006 after an unsuccessful run. And its Itanium processor has been the object of perennial ridicule as a product hanging on for dear life after getting off to a very rocky start back in 1998. Sun Microsystem's former CEO Scott McNealy eventually dubbed the chip the "Itanic" as a play on the word Titanic.
"If you go back in history when they started down the Itanium path in the mid-90s, they said they were going to have a really whiz-bang product, but by the time they finally got it out, it was decidedly ho-hum or even worse," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.
"They've learned that you don't ship a product the first time around so that when it finally does appear people go 'What was all the fuss about?'" he said.
Larrabee, as we know now, was not ready for prime time. "It was for all intents [and] purposes an Intel project--a test bed, some might say a paper tiger," said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, writing in a blog.
For better or worse, Intel is expected to forge ahead with Larrabee, with a real product not appearing until ... Read more
It's too tempting not to pose that question as the monthly Apple tablet rumors fly.
The Apple 'media pad' could look like this--just bigger with ad copy that says '4x faster.'
Conjecture about future Apple products is always an interesting exercise because it requires a lot of imagination to make up for the copious lack of hard data. This is especially the case for the rumored Apple tablet, despite analyst claims about product specifications, such as the oft-repeated 10.1-inch screen.
But there is one theme that keeps popping up that is highly plausible: it will be a device to view media and book content (rumor: 30/70 revenue split between Apple/publisher) in a "better" way. Hmm...let me think for a minute: the same way many people now use their iPhone? (Certainly, the media part.) So--though not a phone per se--basically an iPhone (or iPod) with a bigger screen, faster graphics, and better interface (and/or subscription model) to view content.
Does that about cover it? That doesn't sound like a tablet to me, with all the negative connotations that the word "tablet" has in the PC industry: fat, heavy, kludgey, boring.
Which is why "media pad" sounds a lot better. That, to me at least, connotes thin, light, modern, exciting. But I'll leave the branding to Apple. So far, they have a pretty good track record.
Rumors are a dime a dozen in Silicon Valley--and that's probably overvaluing their cumulative worth. But, on occasion, they can be fascinating, especially when they help crystallize the dynamics underlying competition between Valley heavyweights.
Recently an "Intel will buy Nvidia" theory appeared on the blog I, Cringely, written by the former InfoWorld columnist and the author of "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions."
The upshot of the Robert Cringely post is that the recent project cancellations and legal wrangling between the two companies (and throw in Advanced Micro Devices, too) is simply leading toward an inevitable, unstoppable merger. This, of course, supersedes older rumors about a merger. And outright statements from Intel executives that they had considered a buyout in the past.
The short version of the facts (all real events) behind the theory goes something like this. Intel cancels initial Larrabee graphics chip. That's preceded by Nvidia nixing chipsets for the newest Intel Core i series of processors, as a result of an Intel lawsuit. Intel struggles to get its (Atom) chips into smartphones, while Nvidia has some success with the Tegra chip for small devices. And then Intel's sudden inclination to settle with AMD.
All reasons, theoretically, why the two companies need each other. Other sources--some close to Intel--think it's a patently absurd notion because of the regulatory issues involved, among a dozen more reasons.
Both Intel and Nvidia declined to comment.
