Nanotech - The Circuits Blog

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?

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 more

Updated 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.

ARM, the U.K. company that quietly designs chips used in cell phones worldwide, wants you to know that they're in the gaming business too.

And this goes beyond pushing around tiny figures on your tiny cell phone screen. ARM's Mali graphics processing unit (GPU) can scale up to four cores, according to Ian Drew, vice president of marketing at ARM, speaking in a phone interview last week. ARM got its graphics technology from Norway-based Falanx Microsystems, which ARM purchased in 2006.

The four-core Mali-400 MP GPU targets HD (high-definition) performance on mobile phones, set top boxes, and portable and console gaming. The GPU delivers up to one-billion-pixels-per-second graphics. Just to put this into perspective, though, Nvidia broke the one-billion-pixels-per-second barrier in 2000.

High-end game chips from Nvidia and AMD used in sophisticated PC graphics typically have hundreds of processing cores. But tamping down power consumption is job one for ARM graphics in small devices. "The graphics architecture is really about memory bandwidth. And memory bandwidth is the thing that eats the power," Drew said. So, ARM needs to keep memory bandwidth to a minimum, according to Drew.

The ability to scale up to four cores, however, allows ARM to tackle more demanding graphics than it has to date. As higher-end games come over from the PC space, the games--and the smartphones they run on--will be designed for "different screen resolutions and different bandwidths coming in and out," Drew said. For smartphones, "the bigger the screen, the more triangles (graphics) you can put on there" and the more graphics horsepower that is required.

The push into higher-performance graphics is also being driven by the need to do 1080p video on large-screen TVs via smartphones and other gaming devices, according to Drew.

Mali supports OpenGL ES, which consists of subsets of desktop OpenGL. Open GL is one of the most widely-used standards for PC and device graphics.

Mali technology has 27 licensees to date. The licensees include Amlogic, Broadcom, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens.

The Mali-200 GPU is the most widely-licensed GPU from ARM today and uses programmable shader capabilities. Shaders are used to render graphics.

Advanced Micro Devices worries that lingering issues--both real and speculative--with Apple MacBooks are giving laptop graphics a black eye.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Stan Ossias, director of marketing, mobile graphics, at AMD, began by asserting that my March 11 post "overstated" the case about heat and the instability of graphics processors in laptops and that some readers may interpret heat issues too broadly.

"In the case of Apple's product, I don't know what happened with Nvidia's GPU but we'd like to avoid having the negative aspects taint the entire industry," he said. (GPU stands for graphics processing unit.)

Most recently, there have been reports of performance issues with Apple's new 17-inch MacBook Pro, which has the Nvidia GeForce 9600M chip. But it's unclear whether Nvidia's chips are really the problem and it's not known how widespread the issues are.

Ossias started off the discussion by spelling out how AMD mobile graphics processors can adjust performance and power consumption to different conditions. (The technology, it should be noted, is applied in various ways by many graphics chips.)

"When the system is calling upon the GPU to do more work, we either increase the voltage or increase the clock speed or increase the operating attributes of the system in order to maximize the performance, and when those things are not in demand we can scale them back so they're not constantly being run at their maximum. This is the way we go about trying to avoid overheating," he said. Strict implementation of these design parameters is particularly critical in systems where there is the greatest potential for overheating: thin notebooks and high-end gaming notebooks, according to Ossias.

AMD provides tools to PC makers, he said, who make the final design decisions on how the GPU will perform in different power-usage scenarios. But sometimes the laptop maker won't make the best choice.

"Somebody may choose a GPU that doesn't necessarily have the best operating characteristics or doesn't deliver the optimal power consumption in all operating ranges. That's a constant development challenge" for laptop makers, he said, then added: "A very, very large proportion of our customers do a very good job of this."

"I don't think Apple does a bad job of this in general. They are extremely meticulous generally," he said. However, in some cases "a product decision is made (where) maybe there is more emphasis put on performance characteristics than on another characteristic. Again, that's another choice that can be made," Ossias said.

Ossias gave an example of the type of graphics chip that would not go into the new MacBook Pro, which is about an inch thick. At the high end of its mobile graphics chip lineup, the ATI Mobility Radeon 4870 can draw as much as 45 watts--a big power draw for a mobile chip. Due to these power characteristics, this would not go into a thin form-factor notebook like the new MacBook Pro, he said.

Last week, AMD announced groundbreaking mobile GPUs, the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 and 4860, based on a cutting-edge 40-nanometer process. Both chips compete in the same general performance category as the 4870 but start at a much lower power-consumption level (the low 20-watt range) and "therefore you can actually get the 4830 into a thin and elegant notebook design," according to Ossias. AMD's current 4650 and 4670 can fit into thin form factors also, he said. These latter two chips would be in the same class as the Apple MacBook Pro's Nvidia GeForce 9600M, he claimed. The 9600M is the chip alleged to have heat and performance issues.

"I know that when Nvidia announced (in October of last year) publicly that it was recalling or having to rework some of its products and they took a big write-down, we had to address concerns from our customers that we were not also experiencing packaging failures because of the overheating and design flaws that they were experiencing in their product line," he said. "So, we basically had to go and calm down a lot of our customers and say, look, this is not something that's inherent to our technology, it's not something that you have to expect from any GPU."

Intel is making a bid to become a force in smartphones. This will test its ability to compete in arguably the most important chip market outside of PCs.

The deal struck this week with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. will put the Intel architecture into the same factories that churn out chips for companies like Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, which use an alternative architecture called ARM--the choice for many small devices, cell phones, and most smartphones, including the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, and Google-based Android phones.

ARM has always been a thorn in Intel's side. So much so that Intel acquired the StrongARM architecture in 1997, turned into Intel XScale, and aimed it at handhelds (most prominently iPaq handhelds sold by Compaq and then Hewlett-Packard). Before that, StrongARM had been used in the Apple Newton (a primitive precursor to the iPhone) and other small devices.

But Intel sold the money-losing XScale business to Marvell in 2006. And so ended Intel's attempt to compete ARM to ARM in the small device space.

What happened? The small consumer device and communications chip business is not the PC business and, consequently, not an area where Intel has historically been competitive. But that doesn't mean Intel can afford to ignore this space. Handheld personal computing has arrived (if you hadn't noticed). The iPhone, Blackberry, and Android phones are virtually handheld PCs--with Intel processors nowhere to be seen.

So this time instead of coming up with an ARM chip, Intel is trying to shoehorn its successful x86 architecture into the ARM universe of smart phones, consumer electronics, and the amorphous, though typically profitable, "embedded" market. TSMC excels in building chips for all of these markets. The world's largest contract chip manufacturer operates successfully on gross margins much lower than Intel's enviable x86 PC margins, typically north of 50 percent (as this CNET Blog Network piece points out).

And one market where Intel would like to succeed (and some would say must succeed) is smartphones because of its sheer size and because "that's where the PC functionality is moving toward," said Doug Freedman at Broadpoint AmTech. Though markets for hardware that goes into, for example, industrial or medical hardware, will be important, it's the smartphone market that will test Intel's ability to compete profitably in a consumer space outside of PCs.

Just how big is the overall cell phone market? On a unit basis, it is about five times the size of the PC market. There were about 1.22 billion handsets shipped in 2008, while the PC market is forecast at 257 million units in 2009, according to Gartner.

But Intel cannot operate the way it does in the PC world--where its credo almost seems to be: if we build it, they (HP, Dell, Acer) will come. This won't work in the cell phone industry. Service providers and handset makers are center stage, hardware is at best a side show. So, hooking up with TSMC is a way for Intel to make itself more palatable to cell phone companies, which are not used to dealing with the 800-pound PC chip gorilla. "By going through a TSMC, it is perceived less as an Intel move and more as, hey, I'm just another source for you the handset maker because you're already used to buying stuff from TSMC," said Ian Lao, an analyst at In-Stat. "It's insulating the gorilla thing."

And it's none too early. Qualcomm is now pushing the performance envelope with its Snapdragon platform, Nvidia is hawking its graphics-intensive Tegra technology, and Texas Instruments is revving up its OMAP chips to achieve better performance per watt.

In other words, while these chip companies are not wavering from their longstanding strong suit of power frugality--an imperative in the cell phone world--they are also beginning to ratchet up chip speeds to 1GHz and above and add more processing cores. And that's Intel's strong suit.

"For ARM developers, multi-core implementations will address much of the performance differential," said In-Stat's Lao. Look no further than Qualcomm. The future Qualcomm QSD8672 chip will be a dual-core Snapdragon that features two CPU computing cores capable of 1.5GHz performance, 1080p high-definition video, Wi-Fi, mobile TV, and GPS. The graphics core is based on Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit's technology.

Hmm...Dual-core processor, ATI graphics, high-definition video? Sounds a lot like a PC. Indeed one of the burning questions is whether PC makers will begin running Microsoft's operating systems on ARM-based devices, according to Lao.

"The next 9 to 18 months will be quite interesting to watch," he said. "Can Intel get down to the cost and power levels needed? Will they be able to get the carrier and handset makers aboard? There will definitely be a market shakeup."

Advanced Micro Devices' CEO Dirk Meyer is confident about his company's ability to compete--especially with Intel--and believes a new focus on processors for smaller laptops (and possibly a Netbook chip) will be key.

During a phone interview Thursday, Meyer also addressed the finalization of its deal to spin off its manufacturing operations. As planned, AMD will become a chip-design company and spin its manufacturing operations off to a new entity tentatively called The Foundry Company. AMD will own 34.2 percent of the new manufacturing company, while the Advanced Technology Investment Co. will own the rest. ATIC is an investment company wholly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, which is part of the United Arab Emirates.

"We've completed all the prerequisites to closing the deal and we close the transaction no later than Monday (March 2)," he said.

One of the linchpins of the spin-off is the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Saratoga County, New York. "We still plan to break ground on that facility next summer. When we open up the doors it will be one of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the country," Meyer said.

Meyer explained what the spin-off means to AMD investors. "What AMD stockholders will own is AMD the product company. It will happen that AMD the product company will own an equity interest in The Foundry. However, The Foundry's operations will be funded off The Foundry Company balance sheet. And AMD won't have any obligations going forward to pony up anymore investments to fund The Foundry company operations," Meyer said.

The upshot is that the spin-off will save AMD money, allowing it to be more profitable. "In the past we've been burdened with the need to invest in silicon R&D and wafer fabs (plants). And this transaction gets us out from underneath both of those things. In the past, we've had to invest between one and two billion dollars a year in manufacturing capacity for wafer fabs. We don't have to do that anymore."

"This will bring a bunch of cash into the company and lighten our debt load," he said.

Intel, not surprisingly, sees things differently. It believes having full ownership of manufacturing operations makes it more competitive by allowing it to move quickly to next-generation manufacturing processes: a strategy that Intel has executed almost flawlessly in the past couple of years: moving from 65-nanometer to 45-nanometer and, later this year, to 32-nanometer. (Generally, the smaller the geometries, the faster and more power-efficient the chips are.)

And Intel CEO Paul Otellini mentioned yesterday at a Goldman Sach's technology conference that AMD may face issues when it "decouples" its design operations from the manufacturing side of the business.

Meyer disagrees. "The supposition is just wrong. That presumes we won't have a relationship with our foundry partners." (Foundry, in this case, is a generic term for manufacturing facility.) "Actually, we have that relationship with TSMC today, who builds our graphics parts." (TSMC is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.) "So, the supposition that we won't have the appropriate influence on technology isn't correct. What about Qualcomm, Nvidia, TI (Texas Instruments)...who don't own their own manufacturing assets? The idea of being a successful semiconductor product company and not owning the manufacturing assets isn't new."

So, how will AMD compete with Intel in the race to move to the next-generation manufacturing process? "We've never introduced products on the next node (manufacturing process) first in the industry. One, it's really expensive to do. And it has been a good business decision, frankly. And, given our scale, we don't receive the first copies of manufacturing tools. So, we have, by choice, introduced products six to twelve months after the first company in the business and that typically is Intel. We're not materially disadvantaged by doing so. Our product architectures have always left us very competitive. At the 65-nanometer generation, our products were competitive in the data center with Intel's 45 (nanometer)."

Meyer said AMD will begin its "ramp" to 32-nanometer in the middle of next year.

And what about AMD's ability to respond if the economy gets worse? "We embarked on some restructuring activities in the back half of last year. And when the economy turned south we had to go back and restructure further. We did so with a very sober view of the future. So our plans were not created on the assumption we were going to see a miraculous turnaround in the second half," he said. "Priority one is manage cash and make sure we maintain liquidity. Priority two is maintaining investment in the R&D pipeline. That will make sure we're an interesting company when things do turn around."

An emerging area of critical competitiveness for AMD is mobile processors. Before addressing specifics, Meyer said that consumers should look beyond benchmarks. (AMD mobile processors do not fare well against competing Intel chips in benchmarks). "Let's open the aperture a little bit. Let's think about what people actually do with PCs. And let's think about the experience in various usage scenarios and talk about how well the device responds in delivering that experience. If I'm going to transcode video or play a 3D game. Let's talk about what we actually want to do instead of some benchmark." Here, Meyer is saying that AMD's processors combined with its ATI graphics chips can process certain tasks more quickly than Intel processors alone.

And Netbooks? Does AMD, dare we say, now have a Netbook strategy (after renouncing the Netbook last year)? "I think a year from now people are not going to talk about a Netbook versus a notebook because the lines are going to be so blurred it's not going to make any difference anymore." He said AMD has reevaluated the small laptop space and intends to compete in small devices starting at the 10-inch diagonal screen size. "I hate to say Netbooks because a year from now people won't say Netbooks." And how low will AMD go? "You'll see our chips show up in devices down to the $399 price point."

This very-low-cost chip will be different than AMD's Yukon, aka the Athlon Neo Processor MV-4 (1.6GHz), which will be used in Hewlett-Packard's upcoming dv2 Pavilion ultraportable notebook. Meyer said AMD is working on a chip code-named "Ontario" that's "more purpose built for lower power, lower cost applications."

"So we've got a continuum of solutions going Yukon, Congo, Nile, Ontario...that will enable smaller, less expensive form factors. We're focusing on that ten-inch and above..10, 11.6 (diagonal screen size)--in there."

Though Meyer didn't get very specific, the single-core Yukon and the dual-core Congo (the latter coming later this year) appear to be targeted at larger screen sizes (like the 13-inch HP dv2 Pavilion) while Ontario is smaller form factors.

Qualcomm supplies the main processor for the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to run Google's Android OS. In an interview Tuesday, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs talked about the genesis of the Google phone and how his company became one of the principal players in the development of the handset.

Jacobs said he goes way back with Andy Rubin, Google's senior director of mobile platforms. "I've known Andy Rubin for a long time--from the Danger days," Jacobs said. (Rubin is co-founder and former CEO of both Danger Inc. and Android, a start-up Google acquired in 2005.) "When they started to get the idea to do an open-source operating system, they came and talked to us because we had the 3G chipsets and they knew us," Jacobs said.

On what Google brings to the mobile handset market that the Apple iPhone doesn't, Jacobs said, "They're trying to build an open developer's community and have the software be open source, and that means people will be able to modify it however they want."

What else makes Google's phone different? "The industry is also interested in seeing what new (business) models can accelerate time-to-market," Jacobs said. "Give people the opportunity to differentiate."

And Jacobs says Google's back-end services are crucial. "Everyone talks about cloud computing. This is cloud computing. It's got all those services on the back-end. It uses all that storage and compute power on the Net."

As for how HTC came into the mix, Jacobs said he has worked with HTC since its beginnings about 10 years ago. "We had an investment in HTC very early on. And I knew Peter Chao (HTC's chief executive)."

Jacobs said the relationship with HTC was forged when the Compaq iPaq, one of the most popular of the early handheld devices, first came out. HTC made the original Compaq iPaq handheld. "Microsoft got Compaq to sell it...the very first one that came out." The Compaq iPaq, which has been rebranded the HP iPaq, used Microsoft's PocketPC software.

So, looking back on all of this history, the principals from Android, Qualcomm, and HTC were really just leveraging longstanding relationships. "It was kind of like a bunch of people who had known each other for a long time in the wireless industries coming together," Jacobs said.

Jacobs also talked about the Qualcomm MSM7201A applications processor that powers the T-Mobile G1. "It's a system on a chip. We ported the Android operating systems onto it," he said.

Qualcomm optimized the Android software by integrating it with the MSM7201A--a dual-core chip that combines hardware-accelerated multimedia capabilities, 3D graphics and built-in, multi-mode 3G mobile broadband connectivity.

The MSM7201A is a 32-bit ARM9 processor that supports GPS functions, EDGE, and HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access).

Qualcomm is also one of the founding members of the Open Handset Alliance.

Qualcomm said today in a statement that it is also working with other manufacturers to develop handsets that operate on the Android platform.

Click here for full coverage of Google Android.

Update on September 4 at 10:00 a.m. with correction about Aicent. See also statement clarifying Aicent's business strategy at bottom.

Intel's investment arm has put another chunk of change into WiMax, a wireless technology that has not lived up to its billing as the successor to Wi-Fi.

This time Intel Capital has sunk $3 million into Aicent with the hope of accelerating the wireless technology's adoption.

Aicent provides data network, messaging, and roaming solutions for GSM and CDMA mobile operators and operates one of the world's first and largest multimedia messaging exchanges, according to an Aicent statement.

In an interview, Ranjeet Alexis, senior director at Intel Capital, said that Aicent excels in "roaming exchange" technology--"Where different carriers can connect to other carriers," according to Alexis.

"They create this hub and different carriers can connect to the hub. If a carrier, let's say, in Africa or Latin America or India, wants to connect into China Mobile, they don't have to directly go to China Mobile," Alexis said. "They can connect to the hub, which, in turn, connects to China Mobile."

Alexis said that WiMax operators could access this hub and connect across different carriers running different wireless technologies.

An interesting concept, except WiMax is still trying to find a foothold after being launched back in 2001 by the WiMax Forum. Not that money has been an obstacle. Intel is a major backer of WiMax along with Nokia and Motorola. The world's largest chipmaker has invested $600 million in Clearwire. That investment is part of $900 million in joint financing of Clearwire with Motorola.

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, in turn, have allocated $5 billion for a WiMax build-out by 2010, and Intel CEO Paul Otellini has proclaimed that 750 million people will be covered by WiMax in 2010 and 1.3 billion by 2012. WiMax is like Wi-Fi, but offers much broader coverage.

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, however, is not keen on WiMax's chances. Dulaney says it has potential in developing countries where there is little wired infrastructure. "There, it makes a lot of sense," he said. But less so in developed countries, where, as a pure mobile technology, it is problematic.

"It's semi-mobile, which means you pretty much have to stay in one place while you're using (WiMax)," Dulaney said. "There were supposed to be mobile phones out from Motorola and Samsung but those haven't appeared."

"So, we would say WiMax, as a (pure) mobile technology, has underperformed and doesn't have much potential there." And WiMax will have trouble going head-to-head with cell phone giants like Verizon, he said. "It's going to pale in comparison to Verizon who's committed to LTE. AT&T and T-Mobile all are also committed to LTE." (LTE stands for Long-Term Evolution.)

"That leaves Sprint as sort of a wireless orphan," Dulaney said, referring to the fact that Sprint is stuck with WiMax.

"Most likely what you're going to see is that Intel is going to throw a lot of money at getting laptop manufacturers to put WiMax into their laptops," he said, with the hope that users will select WiMax over Wi-Fi.

Intel also has plans to push WiMax for its handheld mobile Internet devices.

(Correction: Aicent is not a startup. It was founded in 2000 and its services cover 1 billion subscribers.)

(Correction: Aicent states that it's technology-agnostic. The company made the following statement: In as much as Intel is betting on WiMax, Aicent is betting that technology evolves and Aicent needs to be ready to support all the technologies employed by carriers around the world. Yes, Aicent has a WiMax initiative, but the company's 4G plans include LTE and UMB as well. And Aicent's services are global in nature so if WiMax becomes the popular choice in Africa, there will be a need for their services between African carriers, and between African carriers and carriers around the world - potentially for interstandard roaming.)

Is four processing cores inside a laptop overkill? Probably not for gamers. Intel is expected to meet this insatiable need for speed when it rolls out it first mobile quad-core processor.

An Intel executive is on the record stating an August roll-out.

And this may happen sooner in August than later. System vendors may go public with information about the quad-core mobile processor as soon as August 11, according to sources. This is when other processors, such as the Core 2 Quad Q9650 (3GHz), are expected to go public.

Many of the details of the quad-core mobile processor are public already. At the roll-out for Centrino 2, Mooly Eden, an Intel senior vice president, said the quad-core mobile chip will have 800 million transistors and a 45-watt power envelope--10 watts higher than the 35-watt Intel mobile processors used today. "You'll see gaming machines and (mobile) workstations with more compute power than servers two years ago," Eden said.

The quad-core QX9300 chip will be part of the Intel Extreme series of mobile processors. HP's high-end Pavilion HDX gaming laptop line and Dell's Alienware unit both offer laptops with Intel Extreme mobile processors such as the X9000.

Last week, Intel announced the Intel Core 2 Extreme X9100, a dual-core mobile processor running at 3.06GHz.

So, is a quad-core mobile processor overkill? "Definitely not for our customers," said Kelt Reeves, president of enthusiast PC maker Falcon Northwest. "We've been putting quad-processors in (laptops) for a long time."

To date, Falcon Northwest has used desktop quad-core processors and currently uses a Q9550 quad-core chip, which has a 95-watt thermal envelope--unsuitable for a standard-size laptop. But Falcon Northwest quad-core laptops are typically "big power-hungry beasts that weigh twelve pounds," Reeves said. The upcoming mobile quad-core has half the power envelope of the Q9550.