And Intel tries to enter the low-end...

[cbn]

If the consumer market starts using smartphones and tablets as their primary computers, they won't be running Intel chips. And that's just the beginning really.

One issue Intel faces is that there are a lot of CPU competitors for the ARM ISA. That should keep things cheap and affordable for device makers choosing ARM .....until one of the SOC makers is able to break away from the others.

 

[opethfan]

The netbook market has pretty much destroyed, and has been replaced with actually fairly decent notebooks in that price range (which makes it a great time to buy one, heh).

And most of those ~$300 - $400 laptops are powered by the AMD E-350 or E-450.

Intel certainly must be feeling the pinch at the lower end of the spectrum.

 

[Lonbjerg]

And most of those ~$300 - $400 laptops are powered by the AMD E-350 or E-450.

Intel certainly must be feeling the pinch at the lower end of the spectrum.

Look at Intel's finacial reports.
They don't feel any pinch.

Intel really dislikes low margins markets.

After tehy kicked of the SSD push, they dropped all the low margin SSD market..and focus now soley on the highend/enterprise segment.

The same goes for their CPU line.
Just look how Intel has bleed AMD into red numbers...buy using their advantage on process technology and chip design.

A phenom II x4 CPU has a diesize of 258 mm²
Intel's socket 1336 nehalem has a diesize of 263 mm².

Now look at the price...and you do the math on margins.

Intel is a beast and an anomaly in the tech arena...I am amzed at how people keep underestimating Intel sayning AMD is hurting them...when the facts ar that Intel's marketshare has been growing ever since the Core arch...and AMD's marketshare has fallen year by year....

 

[ncalipari]

People percieve ARM to be a threat to Intel...dosn't make it a fact though.

Still the corporate investors agree on that.

You might think that they are less clever than you, but I would disagree.

 

[ncalipari]

Just look how Intel has bleed AMD into red numbers...buy using their advantage on process technology and chip design..

Not true. Intel bleed AMD with anticompetitive and illegal practices.

 

[bryanW1995]

but you miss the latest iteration of android.

I'm sure you can call and send SMS just fine, but you're missing most of the fun, and you have a poorer battery life, compared to NEON cpus.



Having an internal build, and having a product that meet the maniacal standard of apple are two very different things.

They did develop an internal ARM cpu for a reason.

If their standards are so great then why does Samsung have a better phone?

People percieve ARM to be a threat to Intel...dosn't make it a fact though.

I agree, Intel has a much greater ability to scale down, and if they get stuck they could always manufacture the best arm chip on the market. Or they could just buy arm for that matter.

 

[bryanW1995]

Look at Intel's finacial reports.
They don't feel any pinch.

Intel really dislikes low margins markets.

After tehy kicked of the SSD push, they dropped all the low margin SSD market..and focus now soley on the highend/enterprise segment.

The same goes for their CPU line.
Just look how Intel has bleed AMD into red numbers...buy using their advantage on process technology and chip design.

A phenom II x4 CPU has a diesize of 258 mm²
Intel's socket 1336 nehalem has a diesize of 263 mm².

Now look at the price...and you do the math on margins.

Intel is a beast and an anomaly in the tech arena...I am amzed at how people keep underestimating Intel sayning AMD is hurting them...when the facts ar that Intel's marketshare has been growing ever since the Core arch...and AMD's marketshare has fallen year by year....

This is all true. When did we start agreeing on things?

Guys, intel catches heat from Wall Street if their gross margin dips too low. It's prohibitively difficult, even with Intel's tremendous manufacturing advantage, to run >50% GM on low end cpus. AMD can get away with it b/c any profit at all for them is like manna from heaven. But AMD's cpus are similar to ARM in that they're really cool/light/low power/run on higgs boson technology/etc etc, but they don't scale very well at the high end. Unless and until somebody is able to challenge intel again in their bread and butter market, they will continue to be cautious of entering new, low-margin markets.

 

[Idontcare]

Guys, intel catches heat from Wall Street if their gross margin dips too low.

INTC catches a cold if Intel even hints at the prospects of future GM's declining or even holding steady. Gross margins are immensely important to the institutions that hold much of the float on INTC. They watch it like the financial sector investors watch the FED and Bernanke like hawks over mere hints of potential interest rate changes down the road.

 

[bryanW1995]

I just don't get that thinking. Who cares what intc's GM is if their net income doubles? Eventually they'll have to pursue lower-margin business if they want to keep the money rolling in. Speaking of which, what matters more to investors, GM or dividend?

 

[cbn]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s...rformance-power-consumption-leaked/14355.html

Intel's 32nm "Medfield" Mobile Chip Surprising Performance, Power Consumption Leaked

Reported by Theo Valich on Tuesday, December 27 2011 11:11 am

As the launch of next-generation Atom mobile platform looms, Intel is making more and more semi-public and public noise about the new, first true SoC (System-on-a-Chip) from their labs.


REVIEW

According to our conversations with various sources inside Intel, the company is taking the task of "becoming mobile" very seriously. First and foremost, Intel went through an internal reorganization and merged four distinctive business units into one: Mobile Communications, Mobile Wireless, Netbook & Tablet PC and Ultra-Mobility.

Known as "Mobile and Communications", this new business unit is headed by Mike Bell and Hermann Eul. The first product coming out of this newly formed division is a 32nm chip called Medfield. Medfield is the codename for Intel's first true SoC and first true highly-integrated-solution, since old Intel mentality liked to speak about "vertically integrated platforms" without explicitly mentioning just how much chips you need in order to have a functional platform (we all remember two-chip "platforms" that require 4-5 chips to work).

Be that as it may, Intel's "Medfield" chip is the first true SoC which will compete against Apple's A-Series, NVIDIA Tegra, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung Exynos, Texas Instruments OMAP and the likes. Out of all the chips mentioned above, only Samsung's Exynos is currently manufactured in 32nm process, just like Medfield.

Few weeks ahead of the official launch, we now have first performance numbers of "Medfield Tablet Platform". The actual development has an x86 processing core operating at 1.6GHz, 1GB LP-DDR2, WLAN/Bluetooth/FM Radio chip of unnamed manufacturer, 10.1", 1280x800 resolution screen and eMMC/micro-SD card for removable storage.

The benchmarks were performed on Honeycomb (Android 3.x) while the shipping products will utilize the Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.x) operating system.

So, what the performance is?

Intel Medfield 1.6GHz currently scores around 10,500 in Caffeinemark 3. For comparison, NVIDIA Tegra 2 scores around 7500, while Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 scores 8000. Samsung Exynos is the current king of the crop, scoring 8500. True - we're waiting for the first Tegra 3 results to come through.

There are more tests being mentioned to us, but needless to say - Intel should have a competitive part... at least as far as performance goes. The second and more important part is how much power does it actually consumes.

As it stands right now, the prototype version is consuming 2.6W in idle with the target being 2W, while the worst case scenarios are video playback: watching the video at 720p in Adobe Flash format will consume 3.6W, while the target for shipping parts should be 1W less (2.6W).

Can Intel achieve these performance targets in shipping parts with all the limitations that mass-manufactured parts have - only time will tell.

 

[cotak13]

Got anything to back that up?

Didn't intel buy a baseband company just about a year ago?

 

[cbn]

Didn't intel buy a baseband company just about a year ago?

Yep....the Infineon Wireless unit for $ 1.4 Billion.

http://newsroom.intel.com/community...ion-of-infineon-s-wireless-solutions-business

Apparently, they make good equipment but Apple dropped them and went with Qualcomm for the iphone 4S.

 

[Idontcare]

I just don't get that thinking. Who cares what intc's GM is if their net income doubles? Eventually they'll have to pursue lower-margin business if they want to keep the money rolling in. Speaking of which, what matters more to investors, GM or dividend?

Figure out the group psychology of the investor and you could control the equities market.

I don't get the thinking either, to me a buck of profit is a buck of profit, but investors care about the "quality" of the profit. Bunch of nonsense.

That said, nonsense or not it is a way of business management that has resulted in a very different outcome for Intel versus AMD. So there may just be something to it.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Figure out the group psychology of the investor and you could control the equities market.

I don't get the thinking either, to me a buck of profit is a buck of profit, but investors care about the "quality" of the profit. Bunch of nonsense.

That said, nonsense or not it is a way of business management that has resulted in a very different outcome for Intel versus AMD. So there may just be something to it.

it's what keeping their R&D feed while paying out dividens nad building expensive FAB's..and making a profit at the same time

 

[ncalipari]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s...rformance-power-consumption-leaked/14355.html

some people seems to be able to run their software over marketing brochures...

 

[ncalipari]

I don't get the thinking either, to me a buck of profit is a buck of profit, but investors care about the "quality" of the profit. Bunch of nonsense.

It's nice to see the opinion you have of your market intelligence.


You are a very rich billionaire, aren't you?

 

[Lonbjerg]

It's nice to see the opinion you have of your market intelligence.


You are a very rich billionaire, aren't you?

 

[ncalipari]

yes I know he's a moderator and he threatened / insulted me in the past but I simply dont care.

If he thinks that the corporate investors are stupid, then good for him and his wallet

If you simply don't care then a few days away from here won't be a problem.
admin allisolm

 

[Lonbjerg]

yes I know he's a moderator and he threatened / insulted me in the past but I simply dont care.

If he thinks that the corporate investors are stupid, then good for him and his wallet

*waves*

 

[podspi]

As it stands right now, the prototype version is consuming 2.6W in idle with the target being 2W, while the worst case scenarios are video playback: watching the video at 720p in Adobe Flash format will consume 3.6W, while the target for shipping parts should be 1W less (2.6W).

Yikes! Isn't that a bit high? Does anybody know Tegra2's power consumption? I quick google search didn't turn anything up, apparently my Google-Fu has gotten weak

 

[Khato]

Yikes! Isn't that a bit high? Does anybody know Tegra2's power consumption? I quick google search didn't turn anything up, apparently my Google-Fu has gotten weak

Keep in mind that that 2.6W idle/3.6W worst case is the entire platform, not just the processor. For comparison, according to Anandtech's testing, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 with its 25.9 Wh battery lasts 9.5 hours doing normal 720p video playback, which equates to about 2.7W of power usage. So it'd seem that the Intel tablet is definitely higher power usage currently, but it's really not that far off.

 

[ncalipari]

Keep in mind that that 2.6W idle/3.6W worst case is the entire platform, not just the processor. For comparison, according to Anandtech's testing, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 with its 25.9 Wh battery lasts 9.5 hours doing normal 720p video playback, which equates to about 2.7W of power usage. So it'd seem that the Intel tablet is definitely higher power usage currently, but it's really not that far off.

you're forgetting radio, which is even more power hungry than the CPU.

 

[Khato]

you're forgetting radio, which is even more power hungry than the CPU.

Forgetting it how? Forgetting to explicitly state that neither the Galaxy Tab video playback battery life nor the Intel figures specifically mention wi-fi configuration/usage? Sorry, but unlike some I prefer to only state information for which I can provide sources.

 

[ncalipari]

Forgetting it how?

Keep in mind that that 2.6W idle/3.6W worst case is the entire platform, not just the processor.

Sorry, but unlike some I prefer to only state information for which I can provide sources.

here we are: http://pastebin.com/X60u200i

is that better?

 

[Khato]

here we are: http://pastebin.com/X60u200i

is that better?

... I'm still not certain why you're going on about this? Unless you're attempting to claim that the power figures in the linked article were referring to processor only and not the prototype platform? Since it explicitly states that the prototype platform had a "WLAN/Bluetooth/FM Radio chip of unnamed manufacturer".