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Intel Ramps Up 45nm Chip Production, Announces 'Atom' Line
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Mar 09, 2008 10:49 AM
from the bite-size-chips dept.
from the bite-size-chips dept.
Multiple readers have written to tell us of the latest developments out of Intel. Earlier this week, Intel announced the Atom brand of low cost, low power consumption processors. The CPUs, measuring only 25 square millimeters, are the result of the Silverthorne and Diamondville projects. The announcement has caused this CNet columnist to question whether Intel can "spur innovation in ultrasmall devices the way it has in the PC and server industry." Concurrently, Intel has increased its production of 45nm processors to a rate of roughly 100,000 chips per day. As TG Daily notes, the massive investments Intel has made into chip production will make it difficult for AMD to catch up.
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Isaiah (Score:4, Funny)
The Ars Performance Judgement (Score:4, Informative)
AMD is supposed to feel threatened by that?
Parent
Re:The Ars Performance Judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Via's line doesn't get much traction outside of the tinkerer circles, because they're still tied to clumsy legacy chipsets and the costs are ridiculous, considering their extremely limited performance. If Intel can release a slightly better processor for less money, that can be paired with an inexpensive chipset and tiny power supply, they could take a bite out of the microcontroller segment and ARM's small but tenacious market share.
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Re:The Ars Performance Judgement (Score:4, Informative)
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Via (Score:2)
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I'm all for conserving energy, and I abuse my Kill-A-Watt meter on a daily basis. What irritates me, and this also applies to health fads, is the use of pseudo-science in marketing. Gadgets are being branded as "low power" when they were never high power in the first place, and sold at a premium. Other things are remade into low power variants, sold at a premium but consume more power during fabrication than the
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Re:Isaiah (Score:5, Funny)
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Laughably high power consumption for handheld (Score:5, Informative)
The Atom architecture is intended to give Intel a foothold in handheld devices that have traditionally been the sole domain of very low-power RISC processors. The chip itself is tiny at less than 25mm square, and, according to Santa Clara, has a TDP of 0.6W - 2.5W, as compared to a 35W TDP for a "typical" Core 2 Duo.
Sigh. They do this every year or two - Intel announces a new core that will get them into more handhelds. They're still an order of magnitude short. Typical "very low-power RISC processors" you see in a device such as a mobile phone or MP3/video player are more like 0.01W - 0.25W, or even less. They're way more efficient clock-for-clock (and MIP-for-MIP) than any x86 core Intel has ever churned out.
Unless they have a funny definition of hand-held device we don't normally use, of course.
Re:Laughably high power consumption for handheld (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Laughably high power consumption for handheld (Score:5, Informative)
These chips aren't designed to go into cellphones, and Intel frankly says they are not going into cellphones. They are instead designed for MIDs that will predominantly run Linux.
That's funny, because according to the link, MIDs are a class of hand-held device invented by Intel. So I'm right - they have a different definition of hand-held to everyone else.
The next generation of Atom at 32nm will have the proper power envelope to run your cellphone BTW.
They will be 10 times more power efficient than their 45nm version? Extremely unlikely. Also consider that the real lower power processor market isn't standing still either - they're managing about a 25%-50% power efficiency improvement per year. Also consider that the current high-end low-power CPUs you find in mobiles are comparable in performance to the first-Gen Centrino chips.
The kind of "hand-held" devices Intel are talking about have big batteries and are held with two hands. 1 Watt is not a lower power device in this market. The real hand-held device chip market measures their power in milliwatts not watts. They idle at a single milliwatt and average a 20-50mW in use. Intel is still running orders of magnitude higher than that.
Parent
Re:Laughably high power consumption for handheld (Score:5, Informative)
ARM vs. Atom
There's much to like about the Intel Atom, writes Williston in EETimes. Yet, he suggests, the media and its readers may have been overwhelmed by the hype machine. Williston offers the following responses to typical arguments from the atomic power lobbyists, at times quoting analysts such as Forward Concepts's Will Strauss to back him up:
Atom will beat ARM because it can run Vista. -- No it can't, says Williston. Atom can run Windows CE and Linux, but ARM can do the same.
Only Atom offers a "real" Internet experience with Flash video, YouTube, etc. -- "Wrong," writes Williston, pointing to ARM Flash players from BSquare, and an ARM-based YouTube decoder from On2. He might also have noted that Nokia's ARM- and Linux-based Internet tablets use a Mozilla-based browser, with plugins for Flash, Windows Media files, and even Microsoft's Flash-like Silverlight technology.
Intel dominates every market it enters. Here, the writer refers the reader to the history books, especially two years ago when Intel sold its PXA line of embedded processors to Marvell after failing to dominate the market for ARM-based SoCs.
Atom will win because ARM is proprietary technology. Nope, he writes. ARM chips are available from a number of semiconductor vendors.
Intel will win on cost. Not likely, he writes. Using a 65nm process, the Cortex-A8 occupies less than 3mm x 3mm, he notes, while the Atom core probably takes up about 9mm x 9mm of Atom's 25mm x 25mm die size, despite its smaller 45nm process. "With such a huge area disadvantage, it's hard to see how Intel will win on cost," he writes.
Intel will win on power. Once again, not likely, he argues. Intel quotes a thermal design power (TDP) of 0.6W to 2W for Atom, he writes, but doesn't specify clock speeds. ARM offers only "typical" power measurements, making comparison difficult. But at best, he suggests, Intel matches ARM on power usage, while "in most scenarios, Atom burns more power."
Intel will win because it has the most advanced fabs. Perhaps, he writes, but who cares? "Consumers focus on cost, power and speed," he writes.
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The kind of "hand-held" devices Intel are talking about have big batteries and are held with two hands. 1 Watt is not a lower power device in this market. The real hand-held device chip market measures their power in milliwatts not watts. They idle at a single milliwatt and average a 20-50mW in use. Intel is still running orders of magnitude higher than that.
Hmm, if you're saying they would like to be running at such low power, or are trying to get their chips running at lower power, which is what you seem to be implying, I don't think you're right. As the articles says Intel is making 100k 45nm processors per day, how many micro-watt ultra-mobile processords are made per day?
Intel can really be in any processing market they want, and if they're not it's probably because they don't think it's profitable enough.
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No it won't.
It won't be small enough, nor will it be integrated enough. Sure, Intel will move the GPU and Northbridge into the CPU, but that's still nowhere near as integrated as the ARM based competition.
Also it seems that people think that ARM will stay where they are now, and just happily let Intel slowly get to their power consumption over the next five years. What utter tosh. ARM have multi-core Cortex cor
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Typical "very low-power RISC processors" you see in a device such as a mobile phone or MP3/video player are more like 0.01W - 0.25W, or even less. They're way more efficient clock-for-clock (and MIP-for-MIP) than any x86 core Intel has ever churned out.
I was under the impression that most of these had extremely lousy performance, and relied on dedicated decoding chips specificly designed for the task they do. Not that it's a bad thing, I've many appliances that do an excellent job but if Intel is trying to corner the "general-purpose PC in a handheld" market Atom is probably a strong contender. I'm not sure how large that market is though, the interface usually gets so cramped there's a limited number of applications that'd need it...
Re:Laughably high power consumption for handheld (Score:4, Informative)
I was under the impression that most of these had extremely lousy performance, and relied on dedicated decoding chips specificly designed for the task they do.
It's a common impression but it's wrong. For example, most of the CPUs you find powering MP3 players do decoding entirely in software. Even many CPUs powering hand-held video players do decoding entirely in software, but to be honest you'll find most of the high-end video players use hardware decode because a) it's faster and b) it's more power efficient.
The performance of the CPUs you find in a most high-end hand-held devices these days is surprisingly good. Well, it's surprising to people who haven't worked in the field, at least. We're constantly somewhat annoyed that the rest of the world hasn't worked it out yet. A high end ARM11 (common in high-end mobile phones) is actually quite competitive to the performance of a Via C3, for example.
Parent
AMD doesn't HAVE to compete in this market. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Atom architecture is intended to give Intel a foothold in handheld devices that have traditionally been the sole domain of very low-power RISC processors.
I'm not sure that anyone really cares about what the instruction set for a handheld device is, since the operating systems for handheld devices has been relatively chip-agnostic.
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Ultrasmall devices? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the utility for these new processors is reducing power consumption on devices that are the same size we normally expect.
Is anybody really satisfied with ~3 hours of battery life on a laptop? Considering this is the 25th anniversary of the Model 100, which sold 6 million units, has 20 hours battery life, lighter than most laptops today and was easier to use, instant-on, off, people should know we can do better.
-- John.
Re:Ultrasmall devices? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anybody really satisfied with ~3 hours of battery life on a laptop?
Given that laptop sales are at an all-time high, I'd say the answer is "yes". Do people want more? Sure, but they're willing to settle for 3 hours.
Part of them problem is laptops are just an extension of desktops, and desktops are driven by more and more resource usage (and thus more power). I'm sure someone could come out with a laptop with a 12 hour battery life, but:
It'd run modern desktop software slowly.
It'd have a smaller storage space (20 gigs of flash ram?) (this isn't so bad really)
The screen wouldn't be quite as "nice" as the 3 hour laptop. The maker would likely have to compromise on the screen technology to reduce power consumption.
low-power devices like this exist, of course. They're just identified in a different class of device because of the above compromises.
Parent
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But they cost as much as an OLPC, what gives?
subsidies anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
This reminds me of an economics lecture I attended once, which dealt with the topic of government subsidies. In general, the professor was extremely against subsidies, since they pervert free market dynamics and generally leads to lower overall efficiency, higher prices, etc. However, the one situation where he supported them was for industries where the cost of doing business is so high that the world market can only support a monopoly. In that case, he argued that subsidies were vital in that they enable the existence of two entities in a given space, thus creating competition and spurring innovation.
His main example was the commercial aviation industry, where the two big players are Boeing and Airbus. According to him, without large subsidies from the U.S. and E.U., one of those two would "win" and the other would cease to exist, leaving us with a single global manufacturer of commercial airplanes. I wonder if this argument now applies to Intel?
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Seriously, Intel is huge, but there have been other, better, chip makers before and likely will be again. If intel's competition declines, their designs will begin to stagnate as they try to increase profit and deliver 'shareholder value'. Then another AMD/ARM/IBM etc etc will come up with something different and th
Re:subsidies anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.overclockers.com/tips01276/ [overclockers.com]
what clause 6.2 appears to say is that if AMD gets taken over or goes bankrupt, Intel has the right to end AMD's right to use Intel's patents and copyrights after sixty days notice. This would seem to mean AMD couldn't make x86 processors anymore.
The direct findlaw doc link:
http://contracts.corporate.findlaw.com/agreements/amd/intel.license.2001.01.01.html [findlaw.com]
So the arms race isn't so cut-and-dry because x86 is so pervasive. Any competitor would likely find themselves in the same situation as AMD because Intel holds the licensing trump card. Imagine being the startup trying to negotiate a fair arrangement under those conditions (i.e. where they could be truly competitive with Intel down the road).
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Hmm, I'm not sure if it'd apply to Intel or not. Surely though it'd apply to operating systems since MS is a convicted monopolist. The solution is therefore for the government to subsidize linux.
The difference is that it takes billions of dollars just to start to compete with Intel. Someone could make a Windows clone and compete with Microsoft for, say, a couple tens of millions. That nobody does it is the stupidity of most of the industry, who don't understand the power of compatability. They just see
I don't think it does (Score:2, Interesting)
It isn't that other companies couldn't compete in the desktop market, it is that they
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If the OS is open source unix, it happened yesterday.
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I've gone through this at work, getting various OSS things written for x86 Linux to run on SPARC Solaris. Sometimes it is quite easy, just a recompile. Other times, it is a nightmare. I
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You're right that languages like Java and Python are much easier to port than C, but porting is the developer's problem, not the user's. When the software is open source, it is highly likely that, for major applications, some developer has already ported it to whatever architecture you may be interested in using. Debian runs on 11 architectures. When I used gentoo (perhaps not t
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Eee/Cloudbook/OLPC class sub-lappies... (Score:3, Interesting)
Gimme one of those, with a REAL Linux inside (Debian Lenny would be perfect, or Kubuntu) and I'd be sold.
100,000 Chips / Day (Score:2)
- difficult for AMD to catch up
Do better on the benchmarks and it would be a smaller problem. People believe Intel is a performance winner, so AMD has to provide concrete evidence of equivalent or better performance. Easier said than done, but that's what can bring investment funding and sales.
AMD can go fabless (Score:5, Interesting)
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That may be true (although with the Athlon they were close), but you just do not get fabrication like Intel's on the open market. If you want cutting etch CPUs, you need cutting etch fabs, and that is not available as a commodity.
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I mean, it seems strange to me that these fab size reductions keep coming down like clockwork if it's research that's holding them back. I would expect that the jumps would be more irregularly spaced and dramatic, even if they average out to the Moore observation.
"Atom" is a clever name (Score:2)
Intel has been running another clever commercial on TV news programs. A bunch of professionl hold the chip die (smaller than the chip case itself) and mention the remarkable contribution this tiny computer makes in some aspect of their life.
Cheap internet appliances for the whole world (Score:5, Interesting)
My purchase of an Eee PC got me to do up a presentation for the engineers at work,
"Poor Man's Computer: Cheap Internet Appliances for the Whole World"
http://www.cuug.ab.ca/branderr/pmc [cuug.ab.ca]
on the topic. Short version: as predicted by Dan & Jerry Hutcheson in Scientific American about 1997, the market is turning from "endlessly bigger and faster at the same price point" to "smaller and way cheaper if not as fast". We're taking our "Moore's Law gains" in the form of money rather than than speed, thanks very much.
And this price drop into $300 and $200 laptops (and under in the case of the XO) is colliding with the surge in global population that make $10/day or more in the developing world. Sales in the billions beckon. 100,000 per day? Hah. If they make the right product, they'll have to ramp up to many hundreds of millions per year.
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all day battery life
light-weight
instant on/off (like a PDA)
full-screen window manager (like a PDA)
de-bloated software
but with a full sized keyboard and display
The point for me is not a low-cost cheapie computer. The point is more utility, usability, portability when moving from the kitchen to the confer
Re:25 square mm, not 25 mm square (Score:4, Interesting)
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