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May 5, 2010

Intel has unveiled a less power-hungry version of its Atom mobile processor platform – the 45nm Z6xx – which the chip maker says it consumes so little power that it will push the company into the smartphone and tablet computer segment.

Intel enjoys a long and solid history of not only designing its own chips, but also making them in-house, at any of its many efficient manufacturing facilities across the globe.

Even the general public is familiar with the term "Intel Inside" when referring to computers and servers, but thus far the company has always come up short in terms of mobile handheld devices, with its CPUs simply being too power hungry for that all important all-day battery life.

But today, Intel thinks its newer chip is a lot less power-hungry, saying that its latest manufacturing capabilities can come up with chips that deliver less than 50 times the platform idle power needs and with a higher performance to boot.

Intel executives have long argued relentlessly that consumers will not be satisfied with the type of computing experience rival ARM can offer, and that people will demand more robust mobile computing experiences, requiring chips with more power in terms of capabilities but less in terms of power consumption.

Intel believes its Z6 xx platform will bring users what it describes as an unlimited PC-like experience with fast Internet, multi-tasking, full 1080p video, 3-D graphics, multi-point videoconferencing and voice in pocketable designs.

The firm also boasts that the newly released Z6xx manufactured on Intel's 45nm low-power process is highly integrated as well, has an amazing 140 million transistors and includes a controller hub and a dedicated mixed signal IC. The chips also bring support for Wi-Fi, 3G/HSPA, and WiMAX.

In terms of power, Intel is boasting a 50-times reduction in idle power, a 20-times reduction in audio power, and up to a three-times reductions across browsing and video scenarios.

“Building on the C6 state in the original Intel Atom processor design, the SoC incorporates new ultra-low-power states, which take the SoC to 100 micro-watts,” according to Intel's new press release.

Intel says that these power savings translate into about ten days of standby, up to 2 days of audio playback and about 4 to 5 hours of browsing and video battery life.

However, this is still nowhere close to the iPad running on ARM's architecture, some critics say.

Even by the company's own admission, it seems Intel has only caught up and gained ground with ARM in terms of battery life, but that ARM's technology is still light years ahead of Intel when it comes to power consumption and how long a battery can last under normal usage.

The new platform also allegedly supports a range of scalable frequencies, up to 1.5 GHz for high-end smartphones and up to 1.9 GHz for tablets and other handheld designs, Intel claims. This sounds impressive, but Qualcomm also has a 1.5GHz SoC in the pipeline, even if it is due out only in a few months.

Additionally, Intel is also under the impression that with this iteration of Atom, the firm will finally become a competitor in the ultra-mobile and tablet space, “scaling a range of operating systems and market segments,” after about 15 years of unsuccessfully attempting to get into the telco segment of the chip market.

The only problem with that, is that the Z6xx is about three years late, and Intel allies in the PC segment like HP and LG Electronics seem to have already snubbed the chip in their upcoming tablet and smartphone offerings, choosing ARM instead because of a less power-hungry processor.

“Intel has delivered its first product that is opening the door for Intel Architecture in the smartphone market segment,” said Anand Chandrasekher, Intel's general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group.

“Now Intel can scale the benefits of its new chip while significantly reducing the power, cost and footprint to better address handheld market segments. Intel now wants to push the boundaries of performance at low power to show what's possible as handheld devices become small, powerful mobile computers,” added Chandrasekher.

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Source: TSC.