Intel and Nokia have more than a few holes in their respective collections of mobile technologies. How far will the collaboration announced Tuesday go to plug the holes and take them to the next technology plane?
Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher
(Credit: Intel)A platitude easily missed in the announcement may be the most revealing statement. Simply, that the two companies create the opportunity to take advantage of each other's expertise.
Nokia makes mobile phones. Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, can't get its chips into mobile phones. On the other hand, Intel makes the silicon that powers the world's PCs. Nokia doesn't have a clue about PCs.
The announcement won't necessarily inspire confidence with its lack of product particulars, but that's not what it's about. "Today is a relationship announcement," said Jeff Orr, senior analyst for mobile devices at ABI Research.
Intel and Nokia are simply agreeing at this stage to collaborate rather than be direct competitors, according to Orr.
Nokia was clear--in a cryptic sort of way--on one point, however: "Today's collaboration is not about smartphones but creating a new class of devices," Kai Oistamo, executive vice president for devices at Nokia, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Beyond those future devices--presumably powered by Intel silicon--what does Intel get? Initially, the most concrete thing is 3G. "This is a gap for Intel, which has focused on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and WiMax," Orr said. "As a result, when future architectures like an Atom platform are developed for MIDs (mobile Internet devices), Netbooks, smartphones, that means vendors will have more flexibility for connectivity."
In short, Intel can build 3G into its chipsets and Intel can compete more effectively in the future with products like the iPhone and Palm Pre that include 3G as standard. Intel-based notebooks and Netbooks, until recently, were rarely offered with 3G as a standard option.
"We're not talking about specific products today but certainly we would not have taken a license (from Nokia) if we didn't have the intention to build a product," Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager at the Ultra Mobility Group, said in a phone interview Tuesday, referring to Intel's licensing of Nokia's HSPA/3G modem technology.
And it may be too soon for 4G technologies like WiMax. There are many countries (ABI Research's Orr counts about 100) where 3G is just emerging, so talking about WiMax (a 4G technology) is "very premature for most countries," he said.
... Read moreUpdated at 8:20 a.m. PDT: Added Intel-Nokia announcement and Intel discussion.
Intel and Nokia announced on Tuesday a wide-ranging deal covering chips, hardware, and software for mobile devices.
The companies said their new "long-term relationship" will focus on developing new chip architectures and software and a new class of Intel-based mobile computing devices. The move is part of a major shift for Intel, which is a giant in PC chips but not a player in cell phones.
Among other aspects, the agreement covers mobile applications and wireless Internet access "in a user-friendly pocketable form factor."
The Intel and Nokia effort includes collaboration in several open-source mobile Linux software projects. Intel will also acquire a Nokia HSPA/3G modem IP license for use in future products.
"We will explore new ideas in designs, materials and displays that will go far beyond devices and services on the market today," Nokia said in a statement.
For Intel, the deal adds momentum to its push into the small device/smartphone space. The Nokia announcement follows a pact announced with LG Electronics in February to collaborate on development of smartphones based on Intel's future "Moorestown" silicon and Linux Moblin software.
In March, Intel also announced a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to cooperate in the manufacture of Atom processors.
Intel's need
The point of all of these announcements is to get Intel-architecture chips into cell phones, a giant worldwide market with well over a billion devices sold in 2008.
And the world's largest chipmaker needs to be a player in this market. Smartphones like Apple's iPhone, the Palm Pre, and T-Mobile's Google Android phone, the G1, are taking on many of the attributes of PCs and are increasingly adept at Web browsing, video streaming, and game playing--not unlike a personal computer.
Toshiba just began selling a smartphone that packs a 1GHz Qualcomm processor.
Texas Instruments and other chipmakers are also readying speedy processors for smartphones next year with two processing cores and enhanced video capabilities. And it was disclosed last week that an Nvidia chip will power Microsoft's Zune HD.
And what do those devices and technologies have in common? They're all powered by chips based on the ARM design.
Why ARM? ARM's approach to designing processors is the opposite of Intel's: power efficiency is paramount, performance secondary. Smartphone chips need to operate within a tiny power envelope, typically well under 0.5 watts and must last all day on one battery charge. Current Intel Atom chips--while relatively fast--draw too much power and are hardly suitable for smartphones.
The irony
Ironically, Intel manufactured an ARM-based chip series for many years called Xscale, which traces its heritage to a design called StrongARM. These chips were used in the Hewlett-Packard iPaq, a leading handheld for a number of years. But Intel sold this business to Marvell in 2006.
The chipmaker's strategy now is to shrink its global-standard x86 PC chip architecture to the point where it can run efficiently in smartphones. That's where Moorestown comes in. Intel claims Moorestown will be suited for high-end smartphones by 2010 and that "Medfield" silicon will make it into standard cell phones by 2011.
Neither Intel nor LG gave a date for availability of the LG device, but it is expected to appear soon after Moorestown is available. Intel is saying that Moorestown will be available in 2009 or 2010, though the second half of 2009 appears increasingly likely.
Under the agreement with TSMC, Intel will port its Atom processor technology to TSMC, which will serve solely as a manufacturer of Atom-related silicon--primarily chipsets.
Updated at 9:35 p.m. PST with updated list of Atom Z5xx series processors.
A lot happened in the chip world Monday. Amid all the commotion, Intel announced a new line of Atom processors.
In addition to Intel's watershed deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to essentially co-manufacture Atom processors, Advanced Micro Devices officially split in two, and Spansion filed for bankruptcy protection.
But in case you missed it, Intel also rolled out new Atom Z5xx series processors. Four "unique" new versions in all, according to Intel. What's different about this Atom announcement is that Intel is saying clearly for the first time that a shipping Atom product is targeting phones--or what it is calling "media phones." To date, Intel has used nomenclature like "MID" (mobile Internet device) or "Internet devices" for other Atom models.
Intel Z5xx series of Atom processors with new models listed
(Credit: Intel)That said, don't expect to see these Atom processors in many smartphones. That won't happen until Intel brings out the next version of Atom called Moorestown, due late this year or next year. That chip will be lower power than current Atom processors, in order to meet smartphone battery-life requirements, and more highly integrated. Moorestown is the chip that LG Electronics plans to use in a future smartphone.
Intel is also targeting the chips at embedded industrial applications--potentially the largest market--and in-car infotainment devices.
Updated at 10:50 a.m. PST with additional information from announcement and Intel-TSMC conference call.
Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. will collaborate on Atom chip production, the companies announced Monday.
For its part, Intel is eying big markets--such as smartphones--where it is currently not a player, but TSMC is. "Many of our customers already had an existing IP (Intellectual Property) infrastructure on TSMC that they would like to take advantage of as they ramp Atom-based products. That's essentially what the agreement is about," said Anand Chandrashekar, senior vice president at Intel, speaking Monday morning in a joint Intel-TSMC conference call. Atom is currently the most widely used processor in Netbooks.
Chips are targeted at end products such as handhelds, Netbooks, and consumer electronics, Chandrashekar said.
"(It's about) enabling Atom on TSMC (and) enabling TSMC to go after these new market segments as well as Intel going after these market segments together," Chandrashekar said.
Under the agreement, Intel would port its Atom processor CPU cores to the TSMC technology platform including processes, IP, libraries, and design flows. TSMC, however, will not market Atom chips as a TSMC product. It will serve solely as a manufacturer of Atom-related silicon, company executives said Monday. All products that emerge from the collaboration will be Intel-branded products.
Collaborating with another manufacturer on chip production is an unusual move for Intel, which prides itself on doing chip manufacturing in-house. It is not unprecedented, however, as Intel has consigned production of select silicon to outside manufacturers in the past. TSMC is the largest contract chip manufacturer in the world.
The upcoming Atom processor code-named Moorestown--due late this year or early next year--will be a system on a chip (SOC) that combines the processor, graphics, memory controller, and video encode/decode into a single chip package. An accompanying chip will provide functions such as wireless, storage, and I/O (input/output).
TSMC already makes SOCs for companies such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
Intel's goal is to get its x86 architecture-based Moorestown SOCs into future cell phones. The chipmaker recently announced a deal with LG Electronics whereby LG will use Intel's Moorestown processor in upcoming smartphones.
The challenge for Intel will be matching the energy frugality of silicon from longtime cell phone silicon suppliers like Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. Toshiba recently disclosed that it is using Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip in a forthcoming phone, and Qualcomm supplied the main processor in the first phone using Google's Android OS.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini commented on competition with Nvidia, the economy, and the possible fate of its flash memory factories on Wednesday at a tech conference in San Francisco.
Otellini began by speaking to the fact that the global economic downturn has depleted inventories of chips. "I don't think there's much inventory out there. It's hard to imagine that there's a significant drop below this." He made his remarks at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference 2009, which was streamed live.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini
(Credit: Intel )And moving quickly to the next generation of chip technology is critical to get Intel through the downturn. "One of the reasons you saw us be so bold as to make an announcement on 32-nanometer (manufacturing technology) two weeks ago is that we are quite confident in the benefit of the technology. It will lower our cost. We'll have a lower cost structure by moving our product line to the technology. That gives us comfort and will allow us to do well when the market recovers."
Otellini said that Nvidia is not in a strong competitive position. "If you don't have a microprocessor, what else do you have to sell?" he said, countering Nvidia's claims that the industry is becoming more centered on graphics chips. "The graphics subsystem for most machines will be subsumed into the microprocessor. So what Nvidia is doing is making an argument to defend the status quo," he said. He said if you want higher performance you can buy a discrete graphics chip. "You can buy it from them or you can buy it from us," he said, referring to Intel's upcoming Larrabee graphics chip.
And what about Intel's flash memory strategy? "It may not be essential for us to have our own NAND factories to build (flash memory). We could probably specify the product that we want and buy it from third parties," he said.
Speaking about Atom he said the "shortest time to money" is Atom in the embedded market place. As Intel moves to a system-on-chip (SOC) design it will become more profitable. "With north of a billion-dollar business there, that should triple in the next few years," he said. Embedded chips are used in cars, consumer electronics, and industrial applications, among other areas.
About Netbooks he said: "We lit a fuse. It's the only bright spot in the PC industry at this point in time." But he added: "Atom is still less than half the performance of our entry-level Celeron product. It wasn't designed to be a notebook replacement part." He added the Microsoft will limit the starter edition of Windows 7--that will be used for future Netbooks--to three applications running at once. "You'll be underwhelmed," he said, relative to mainstream notebooks
He also addressed smartphones and the future Moorestown Atom chip. "You saw some announcements last week with LG (Electronics). You'll see some announcements in the next month or so from some other major handset manufacturers. Watch that space." He also added that Intel, with its 32-nanometer technology, is trying to move from the MID (mobile Internet device) design to true smartphones. "System-on-chip allows us to get down to a single chip...so we can get the MID form factor--which is sort of an ultra-mobile PC-- into the mobile handset form factor. That's critical for us."
The Intel architecture is coming to smartphones.
LG Electronics and Intel are announcing a collaboration based on Intel's Moorestown silicon and the Linux Moblin v2.0 software platform at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. The future LG device--which is being described as a smartphone--is expected to be one of the first Moorestown designs to market.
Moorestown is the code name for the successor to Intel's current Atom processor.
"LG and Intel's common goal is to unleash rich Internet experiences across a range of mobile devices while delivering the functionality of today's high-end smartphones," the companies said in a statement.
The key to getting Intel chips that run all the most popular PC software into a phone is reducing the power consumption below the Atom chip used today in Netbooks, according to Ashok Kumar, an analyst at investment bank Collins Stewart. "If you look at the power consumption projectory, they dropped Atom to two watts and they expect to drop that (with Moorestown) by a factor of 10," Kumar said.
"That would squarely be in the power envelope of a smartphone," Kumar said. Intel mobile processors found in mainstream laptops have a thermal envelope of between 25 and 35 watts.
But whether Moorestown can actually achieve the energy frugality of silicon from longtime cell phone silicon suppliers like Qualcomm and Texas Instruments remains to be seen. Toshiba recently disclosed that its using Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip in a future phone and Qualcomm supplied the main processor in the first phone using Google's Android OS.
Moorestown will also be used in MIDs or mobile Internet devices. And it seems, at times, that the terms smartphone and MID are used almost interchangeably. "The MID segment will drive growth at LG Electronics. We chose Intel's next-generation Moorestown platform and Moblin-based OS to pursue this segment because of the high performance and Internet compatibility this brings to our service provider customers," Jung Jun Lee, executive vice president of LG Electronics, said in a statement.
Neither company gave a date for availability of the LG device, but it is expected to appear soon after Moorestown is available. Intel is saying that Moorestown will be available in 2009 or 2010, though the second half of 2009 appears increasingly likely.
There's life beyond WiMax. At the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei Intel is looking beyond that wireless technology to other communications methods for its upcoming Moorestown smartphone platform.
Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher, speaking Monday at IDF, said that Intel will collaborate with Ericsson for High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) data modules for the Moorestown platform. WiMax is also supported, but it faces stiff competition from entrenched wireless technologies and may not be compelling enough to rise above the fray.
In addition to WiMax and HSPA, other wireless technologies including WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and mobile TV will be supported on Moorestown, Intel said.
Moorestown is a system-on-a-chip (SOC) comprised of "Lincroft," which integrates a 45-nanometer processor, graphics, memory controller, and video encode/decode onto a single chip. It also includes an "I/O hub" code-named Langwell that supports connection to wireless, storage, and display components.
Intel was also showing a number of slides that detail its upcoming Nehalem i7 processor and the accompanying X58 chipset. Intel said last week that Nehalem is shipping now and is due to be officially rolled out in November.
The i7 will initially appear as a quad-core processor and feature QuickPath Interconnect--a high-speed chip-to-chip communications technology--and "Turbo Boost," which had been referred to previously as "Turbo Mode." This is essentially a switch that turns off unused processor cores and then uses the remaining active cores more efficiently.
In Taipei, Intel also delineated the differences between Atom-based "Nettop" desktops and more mainstream desktop PCs. Intel is trying to promote Nettops for Web browsing, word processing, e-mail, and "legacy" games. Anything more taxing than these basic applications is not recommended for Nettops.
Intel Core i7 and x58 chipset features.
(Credit: Intel)
Intel Atom-based Nettop desktop.
(Credit: Intel)
1999 Psion Revo Plus PDA looks a lot like MIDs today.
(Credit: Miha Ulanov)The iPhone is a mobile Internet device. Just in case you forgot, ARM wants to remind you that before the Intel Atom processor there was the iPhone and its handful of ARM processors. Yeah, it's a MID too.
Listening to Intel, a casual observer might believe that the world's largest chipmaker is single-handedly creating the class of tiny devices called mobile Internet devices or MIDs.
But ARM processors have been powering small, low-power devices since 1985. There was the Psion series of handhelds, the Apple Newton, Nintendo DS, and, today, products like the Microsoft Zune. All used or use ARM architecture chips.
On a Web page titled Mobile Internet Devices, ARM now posts this marketing message: "It is clear that the future of mobile computing rests in devices that are truly mobile, always connected and providing a rich Internet browsing experience--ARM calls these devices Mobile Internet Devices (MID)." Intel does too.
The Apple iPhone is full of ARM silicon and technically a MID
(Credit: ARM)ARM lists other devices like the Nokia N95, the BlackBerry 8700g, and the Motorola Q. All powered by ARM silicon.
The Web page continues: "ARM licenses the intellectual property that powers MIDs. This includes all the technology required by the chips at the heart of these devices: the microprocessor, digital signal processing, embedded memory, graphics acceleration, (and) fabric interconnect."
And ARM is not exaggerating. If anything ARM is understating the case. As one of the most understated chip architectures today, few consumers know the name. And almost no one listening to their Zune or iPod or talking on their Nokia phone knows that there is ARM silicon inside. But consumers can hardly miss the flashy Intel, AMD, ATI, or Nvidia branding on their PCs.
And this conspicuous PC-style branding strategy will carry over to Intel MIDs and Netbooks too. Lest consumers forget, maybe ARM should do a little more in-your-face branding.
Sharp got atomized Monday. The Japanese electronics maker along with Willcom announced the ultra-mobile Willcom D4 "communication device" based on Intel's Atom processor and Microsoft's Vista operating system.
Willcom D4 ultra-mobile communications device
(Credit: Willcom)Microsoft and Intel were also credited with development of the device, according to the Japanese-language release on the Sharp Web site.
The handheld-size device uses a 1.33GHz Z520 Intel Atom processor and runs Windows Vista Home Premium (with Service Pack 1). Other prototype devices based on similar designs--referred to as mobile Internet devices or MIDs--have also been shown running the Linux operating system.
With a separate headset, the device can also be used as a phone using Wilcom's Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) network, both Sharp and Willcom said.
The device weighs in at 470 grams (about one pound) and features a 5-inch sliding LCD (1024x600/262K colors) with an LED backlight, a 1.8-inch 40GB hard disk drive (Ultra ATA/100), 64-key QWERTY keyboard, a built-in camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a mirco SD card slot, and a USB 2.0 slot.
The D4's inclusion of a 40GB hard disk drive is an indicator that the device is meant to run Windows--because of the operating system's typically larger footprint--not Linux.
Intel Atom technology includes a single-chip with integrated graphics called the Intel System Controller Hub.
Atom will find its way into fit-in-your-pocket MIDs from Gigabyte, Toshiba, LG Electronics, Lenovo, and BenQ, among others. Netbooks (inexpensive, Internet-centric ultra-small notebook PCs) such as Asus's popular Intel-based Eee PC, MSI's Wind PC, and Clevo will also use the chip.
Willcom D4 is slated for a June release and is expected to be priced at 128,600 yen ($1,272).
Intel senior VP Anand Chandrasekher touts Linux for MIDs.
(Credit: Intel)At the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai this week, the buzz was about the Atom processor, mobile Internet devices, and Linux. What wasn't buzzing? Microsoft.
Welcome to the brave new world of computing sans Redmond.
At IDF, there was little media focus on Intel's next-generation Nehalem chip and even less on the Centrino 2 processor--both of which will run Microsoft software.
The focus was on devices that won't necessarily or exclusively run Microsoft software: Handheld-size MIDs--shorthand for mobile Internet devices--and Netbooks. Netbooks will run both Microsoft Windows and the Linux operating systems, but the MID category appears to be shaping up as a non-Microsoft enclave. MID makers, who are expected to begin shipping devices later this quarter, include Lenovo, Toshiba, Panasonic, and LG Electronics.
Asianux distributes Mobile Midinux.
(Credit: Intel)Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, said in his IDF keynote: "As always, we partner with Microsoft." Then he proceeded to not mention Microsoft again--and mentioned Linux a lot. "We announced an initiative last year. A Linux-based initiative. In order to get the form factor down, to get the cost down, and to even get lower power levels beyond what was achievable. We have an entire ecosystem behind it. Ubuntu and Red Flag. The initiative is called Moblin," Chandrasekher said.
Aptly enough, the Moblin Web site is entitled: "mobile and internet linux project." That's pretty self-descriptive.
Whether MIDs succeed or not, only time will tell. But if they do succeed, it won't be on Microsoft Windows--at least not in the foreseeable future. Microsoft has recently hired Len Kawell, originally the CEO at Pepper Computer, a start-up focused on MID software, to scale Windows from smartphones (some of which run Windows Mobile) to MID-type devices with "larger screens and faster processors," according to a representative at Weber Shandwick, the P.R. firm that represents Microsoft's Mobile business.
Scott Rockfeld, Group Product Manager for Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business, said this in an e-mail Thursday: "Windows Mobile is constantly innovating the platform to meet the expanding mobile needs of our customers. MIDs are an exciting class of devices that address many of those needs, and we're focused on ensuring that Windows Mobile is a great platform for partners to build MIDs."
But that's probably news to a lot of the attendees in Shanghai listening to Renee James, vice president general manager of the Software and Solutions Group at Intel.
"This new category requires a new software environment. There isn't a built-in ecosystem of developers who have been doing MIDs," she said, describing the incipient market. "For MIDS, we, Intel, are establishing that ecosystem. We launched it in September. It's called Moblin.org. It's an open-source project. Intel has contributed the foundational stack. More than 500 member companies are contributing code into Moblin. And it's particularly strong in Asia."
If MIDs catch on--and that's still a big if (though Apple's popular iPhone is arguably a MID)--it will be refreshing to see a PC platform develop without Microsoft participation, or at least see a platform unfold in which Linux distributors may have an advantage over the software giant.
