ARM is
going head-to-head with Intel in
the ultra-mobile PC space, dubbed MIDs or mobile internet devices.
Qualcomm, Texas Instruments (TI) and Nvidia are bringing out
chip-sets using ARM which will run both Smartphones and MIDs.
"The MIDS market is a natural extension of the smartphone
market, and already there's more Internet connectivity with
smartphones than with laptops", Ian Drew, vice president of
marketing at ARM, told Electronics Weekly.
Intel is risking a hiding in the MIDs market by fielding a chip,
the Atom, which uses an order of magnitude more power than ARM's
cores.
"We are one or two orders of magnitude better on passive power
than Intel", said Drew, "we expect an ARM processor to last
multiple weeks in standby mode, not days or hours. If you leave a
laptop on standby overnight it will drain the battery but if you
leave a Smartphone on you expect it to last days."
Earlier this week, in Taiwan, Nvidia demo-ed an ARM-based device
giving 26 hours of video playback on one charge, while Intel showed
machines with four to six hours battery life. Although Intel is
hoping to cut power down in its next generation of Atom, that is
two years away.
"ARM-based vendors will use this window of opportunity to
establish market leadership positions," said Peter King, a director
at Strategy Analytics, which reckons ARM devices will comprise the
majority of MID sales for the next six years.
Asked why Intel can't match ARM for power efficiency, Drew
responded: "Intel designs for MHz ARM has always designed for MHz
per milliWatt, for power efficiency."
But Intel has had an ARM architecture licence since 1997, and
produced ARM-based processors, which it called
XScale,
so why hasn't it learnt to do low-power?
"It's not one big thing," replied Drew, "it's lots of little
things. It takes years of experience. But I'm sure they're trying
to do it."
How does Drew respond to the claim of Intel CEO Paul Otellini,
that Atom is a processor which gives a better Internet experience
because of its x86 architecture?
"The Internet runs on software not on architecture X, or
architecture Y, and the software companies are looking at the
market and seeing that they must be in Smartphones," responds Drew,
"if you buy a smartphone now, it won't be as Internet-enabled as
the latest laptop, but give it another year or so, and it will be
the same. Take the iPhone, its Internet access isn't perfect, but
it's 99 per cent of the way there."
Asked what still needs to be done to make Smartphone access as
good as laptop access, Drew replied: It needs some of the latest
generation of plug-ins to be fully enabled, and the optimisation of
some of the browsers."
Another curious claim from Otellini is that ARM users don't have
access to the latest technology. With TSMC, a foundry used by ARM
licensees TI and Qualcomm among many others, moving to risk
production on 32nm next year, it is more likely that Intel will be
lagging in access to the latest technology than ARM's
customers.
Both of the world's two biggest wireless chip companies, TI and
Qualcomm, are going to base their MIDs strategy on ARM.
Seshu Madhavapeddy, general manager of TI's Mobile Internet
Devices division, said that MIDS devices, in many form factors,
based on TI's OMAP 3 processor, which uses an ARM
core, will be launched this year. And the Qualcomm chipsets
targeting MIDS are based on 1GHz ARM processors.
The fact that ARM has over 200 licences for its cores means that
the architecture has undergone huge innovation over the years.
"Most of our cores are designed to be flexible in lots of different
ways", said Drew, "it's the benefit of having 3bn cores shipped
each year by our partners. A lot of value is added by our partners.
A TI part for instance, will be different to a Qualcomm part to
target slightly different markets. That's very powerful compared to
being one monolith."
Another advantage of the ARM model of licensing loads of
companies is that the end customer can go to multiple sources for
an ARM chip.
Going for an Atom is to go to one supplier, Intel, which has no
second sources. That puts customers at the mercy of a single
supplier's ability to deliver, pricing structure and roadmap.
The world which suffered for two decades under the imposition of
the x86 monopoly, will not readily volunteer to suffer again by
adopting another sole-sourced microprocessor.
And ARM’s next trick? The server market, apparently. Worried by
the huge amounts of power the server farms are gobbling, the server
manufacturers are said to be thinking about putting ARM chips in
their machines.
“We’ve had initial discussions with a few people”, said Drew,
“if you look at the power consumption, it makes sense for them to
use ARM.”
See also:
Electronics Weekly's
focus on microprocessors, a roundup of content on
microprocessor technologies and developments not related to the x86
architecture (from ARM, Texas Instruments and MIPS).
See also:
Electronics
Weekly's focus on microprocessors, a roundup of content
related to x86 microprocessor technologies and developments.