The Intel Atom Thread

[erunion]

Non BayTrail ATOMs have no performance/battery advantage over cheaper ARM tablets. There is absolutely no reason to buy a non Baytrail tablet if you can find a cheaper ARM that will have even better battery life than the 32nm ATOM

The SoCs in $100 tablets are not faster than dual core medfields.

Where are you heading with this line of argument anyways? The fact is that Intel is gaining marketshare, even with underwhelming 32nm products. In a year, with better products and a more mature presence, Intel will be a major player in tablets.
Saying you don't see it happening just means you are failing to see what has already happened.

 

[AtenRa]

The SoCs in $100 tablets are not faster than dual core medfields.

Where are you heading with this line of argument anyways? The fact is that Intel is gaining marketshare, even with underwhelming 32nm products. In a year, with better products and a more mature presence, Intel will be a major player in tablets.
Saying you don't see it happening just means you are failing to see what has already happened.

There are already 8" dual Core ARM Tablets at $99, there are 7" Dual Core ARM Tablets at $59.
What im trying to say is that Intel is loosing the price wars. Intel cannot compete in that low price level. The company is not organized for such low margin operation.
They will never gain a substantial market share going like that. You dont need an Intel or x86 SoC to make a Tablet, and everyone can make/have a cheap ARM to produce a cheap Tablet now days.

 

[erunion]

There are already 8" dual Core ARM Tablets at $99, there are 7" Dual Core ARM Tablets at $59.
What im trying to say is that Intel is loosing the price wars. Intel cannot compete in that low price level. The company is not organized for such low margin operation.
They will never gain a substantial market share going like that. You dont need an Intel or x86 SoC to make a Tablet, and everyone can make/have a cheap ARM to produce a cheap Tablet now days.

Your argument is two years out of date. Intel is currently competing in those low price spaces, so to say they can't do something they are currently doing is pretty silly.

Those $100 tablets are slooooow. 32nm atoms are much faster. Of course, 32nm atoms will be replaced with 22nm and 14nm atoms very soon.

 

[cbn]

Two new Bay Trail from ECS:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ecs-v20-mini-lake-bat-i-v20,25679.html

A thin Mini-ITX called BAT-TI:

And check this out, a sub NUC form factor Mini PC with eMMC:

 

[witeken]

Broxton is a 2015 14nm SoC, in the same timeframe ARM will be on 20nm and even perhaps 16nm TSMC and 14XM GloFo. So both ATOM and ARM will see a die size reduction.

Doesn't matter. Cherry Trail will come in Q3 2014 and will likely be even smaller than Broxton. TSMC's 16nm process doesn't have a die shrink, so Intel's 2 generation lead will be even longer (~1year vs. few months) at 16nm (20nm) vs. 10nm. Intel will have a full 3 generation density lead:

When TSMC has FinFet in 2016, Intel will already have their 3D Tri-Gate for 4 years in 7 architectures (Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Silvermont, Airmont, Goldmont). It will take almost 4 years to get the same density as Intel's 14nm.

 

[Sweepr]

And check this out, a sub NUC form factor Mini PC with eMMC:

Looks good. Any word on pricing?

 

[Sweepr]

Bay Trail-M notebooks are hitting the market

[...] The first Bay Trail-M notebooks to hit the market were dual-cores, based on Celeron N28xx and N29xx parts. The first SKUs were announced as far back as October, but plenty of products were announced in November or December and they are already shipping. Prices start at €249/$249 for entry level devices like the Acer Chromebook C710 or the Acer Aspire E1 (sans OS). There are a number of Bay Trail Celeron notebooks available for under €300 and they are hardly newsworthy, since they have been shipping for weeks.

However, the first quad-core devices are starting to appear and they look even more promising. Most of them are still not available, but they are listed and they are coming. Prices start at €299 for the Acer Aspire E1 510-3520 running Linux, which is based on the Pentium N3520 processor. It packs 4GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive, DVD burner 15.6-inch 1366x768 display and USB 3.0 connectivity. The processor itself is a quad-core Bay Trail-M part clocked at 2.17GHz, but it can hit 2.42GHz on Turbo.

Asus has the X551 based on the Celeron N2920, which is clocked at 1.86GHz or 2.0GHz on Turbo. The rest of the spec includes 4GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive, optical drive and Windows 8. Toshiba chose the 2.0GHz Pentium N3510 for the Satellite Pro NB10 and the N3520 for the Satellite C50, which also features 8GB of RAM. Both are listed for under €400 in Europe.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33596-bay-trail-notebooks-are-hitting-the-market

Here's an interesting comparison, not sure if it was already posted:

Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3740 vs. Z2760

https://ru.intel.com/business/commu...552&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[witeken]

There are already 8" dual Core ARM Tablets at $99, there are 7" Dual Core ARM Tablets at $59.
What im trying to say is that Intel is loosing the price wars. Intel cannot compete in that low price level. The company is not organized for such low margin operation.
They will never gain a substantial market share going like that. You dont need an Intel or x86 SoC to make a Tablet, and everyone can make/have a cheap ARM to produce a cheap Tablet now days.

That's not true. You should read this: Intel Does The Unthinkable

Indeed, even in the 2011/2012 timeframe under former CEO Paul Otellini, both Paul and then co-manager of Intel's mobile group, Mike Bell, made it absolutely clear that the company would not lose a design on price. When you are the challenger entering an established market with established pricing, you can't simply charge more than what the market is used to paying; this would imply a failure to understand basic economics.

Intel's aggressive coordination with its brand vendor partners recently over product pricing and R&D supports has earned the CPU giant mobile processor orders from these vendors, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Most of these vendors originally cooperated with MediaTek and have given up their joint developments with the chipmaker to turn to place orders with Intel, the sources noted.

Essentially, what Intel is planning to do is to aggressively price its parts against MediaTek's. Further, given Intel's manufacturing lead and design prowess (MediaTek is stuck with sub-optimal, off-the-shelf ARM cores while Intel has its own custom cores that do the job better), it is not hard to see that the actual product quality delta or "performance per watt, per dollar" is just going to keep getting better and better against MediaTek which could drive further share gains over time.

Also, here's a quote from Intel's new CEO:

here's still some shift that has to occur within the company. From the PC mentality into this fast-paced, integrated SoC environment. We still have some of that work to go do. About how fast you can turn out new silicon and what that means. There's a lot of detail behind that but we think that it's still going to be another 6-12 months while we kind-of flush out some of the design methodologies that were already in queue and shift towards to different design technologies. So the actual architecture of how we design an SoC is going to shift in the next year to allow us to churn out many more iterations as we go into 2015.

 

[tarlinian]

There are already 8" dual Core ARM Tablets at $99, there are 7" Dual Core ARM Tablets at $59.
What im trying to say is that Intel is loosing the price wars. Intel cannot compete in that low price level. The company is not organized for such low margin operation.
They will never gain a substantial market share going like that. You dont need an Intel or x86 SoC to make a Tablet, and everyone can make/have a cheap ARM to produce a cheap Tablet now days.

This argument is based on the idea that performance is absolutely meaningless. The space where we currently see CT+ tablets ($100-$250), they are more than competitive with equivalent ARM tablets which are usually based on quad core A7s. (Most benchmarks seem to indicate that real world performance of CT+ is around quad A9 or better, which you will not find in any ARM tablet at this price, A9 is no longer really cost competitive on the cost vs. performance scale.) If anything this has a chance to make Intel Inside have cachet again amongst tablets if people who buy $100-$200 tablets notice that the Intel ones are snappier than the unbranded ones.

 

[cbn]

This argument is based on the idea that performance is absolutely meaningless. The space where we currently see CT+ tablets ($100-$250), they are more than competitive with equivalent ARM tablets which are usually based on quad core A7s. (Most benchmarks seem to indicate that real world performance of CT+ is around quad A9 or better, which you will not find in any ARM tablet at this price, A9 is no longer really cost competitive on the cost vs. performance scale. If anything this has a chance to make Intel Inside have cachet again amongst tablets if people who buy $100-$200 tablets notice that the Intel ones are snappier than the unbranded ones.

Both the $99 8" and $59 7" Walmart tablets have 1.5 Ghz dual Core Cortex A9s. In single thread performance, that is going to be noticeably faster than Cortex A7.

 

[Shivansps]

If they gona put a eMMC on there on a M version why not placing a eSATA on there?

also i whould love to see a quad version, also a 2.5" disk fits in there, they just need it to make it a little bit higher and place it below the pcb.

 

[Sweepr]

CES 2014 - Bay Trail Wrap Up

A closer look at Asus’ $299 Wacom-equipped Windows tablet

Asus launched its 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablet earlier this week and surprised everyone by including Wacom stylus support for just $299. At the Consumer Electronics Show today I got a closer look at this small Windows tablet and compared it to Dell’s Venue 8 Pro. The stylus is the main selling point, and as you’d expect it works well. There’s pressure sensitivity and the stylus can be stored inside the bottom of the tablet so you don’t lose it ...

www.theverge.com/2014/1/9/5292808/asus-vivotab-note-8-hands-on

11.6'' LG Tab-Book 2 convertible

LG has two new Windows 8.1 PCs at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. Its second Tab-Book 2 increases the 11.6-inch screen resolution to 1920 x 1080 and adds Intel Haswell processor options. The display is spring-loaded and slides down to cover the keyboard, converting it into a tablet. But if you’re also hoping to use this as a laptop replacement then you’ll need a separate mouse, as there’s no trackpad or pointing stick. The display is bright and has reasonable viewing angles, and a button at the side switches it into a reading mode that reduces battery usage and dims the display and color output.

Like the previous version there’s a release button on the side to return it back into a traditional laptop and the screen glides into either mode. For a convertible Windows PC it’s relatively light at 2.3 pounds, and there’s also a Bay Trail version that’s even lighter at just 2 pounds ...

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/8/5289348/lg-tabook-2-lg-ultra-pc-hands-on

Hampoo Launches Glasses-Free 3D Tablet with Bay Trail CPU

We’ve seen glasses-free 3D on tablets before, and it hasn’t always worked out. However, Shenzen-based brand Hampoo seems to have figured out the formula. The company launched a Bay Trail-powered 3D tablet with a rich 3D effect that doesn’t strain the eyes. We spent some time playing games and watching videos on the 3D slate, which launches in January for a still-unannounced price.

http://blog.laptopmag.com/hampoo-3d-tablet-specs-price

Gigabyte BRIX fanless mini PC is powered by Bay Trail

The system is powered by an Intel Celeron Bay Trail-M processor that offers a bit more performance than you’d get from an Atom processor, but uses significantly less power than even a 4th-gen Intel Core “Haswell” processor. Lower power consumption means lower heat generation, and that means the passive heat sink built into the case should be enough to keep this little computer from overheating.

Gigabyte is showing off a model with integrated WiFi and Bluetooth, VGA, Ethernet, 2 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0 ports, a single RAM slot and a 2.5 inch drive bay. The company typically offers its BRIX computers as barebones systems, which means that if and when this model hits the market you’ll probably have to supply storage, memory, and an operating system yourself. Everything else is built-in.

http://liliputing.com/2014/01/gigabyte-brix-fanless-mini-pc-powered-bay-trail.html

Ramos's Bay Trail tablet debuts at CES 2014

Ramos, is the one of Chinese -based tablet PC manufacturer is ready to release their new products, and now we aheard that Ramos is ready to show up their new Windows tablet at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, USA.

The new Ramos tablet will has dual OS combo, the tablet will has Android OS and also Windows 8.1 operating system in one device. The tablet wil powered by Intel Bay-Trail T.
Specifically, the processor inside is an Intel Bay Trail Z3770D 22nm quad-core CPU clocked at 2.4GHz coupled with 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM.

It appears that customers will be able to opt between 32GB (for basic version) or 64GB versions of the product. The tablet is probably going to sport a 10.1-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels.

http://www.gizmochina.com/2014/01/06/ramos-tablet-with-intel-chipset-is-starting-debut-at-ces-2014

Hands-on with the Lenovo Yoga 2 11 ($529 Bay Trail convertible tablet)

Meet the cheapest member of the Lenovo Yoga convertible PC family to feature an Intel processor. The Yoga 2 11 is a notebook with an 11.6 inch display which you can fold back until it rests opposite the keyboard so you can use the system as a tablet.

It looks a lot like the Intel Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge-powered Yoga 11S or the ill-fated, ARM-powered Yoga 11. But this new model features an Intel Bay Trail processor, and a relatively low starting price of $529. [...]

http://liliputing.com/2014/01/hands-lenovo-yoga-2-11.html

Canvas LapTab tablet dual boots Windows, Android

Sure, Asus, Intel, and AMD are all working laptops and tablets that can run Android and Windows software simultaneously, but does that mean there’s no room for a traditional dual boot system that can run them one at a time?

Indian company Micromax hopes there’s a market for a dual boot tablet, because the company’s coming out with one called the LapTab this year. It’s actually a pretty nice looking 10 inch tablet with an Intel Celeron N2805 processor Bay Trail processor and an attractive (and functional) keyboard cover ...

http://liliputing.com/2014/01/canvas-laptab-tablet-dual-boots-windows-android.html

Sony unveils Bay Trail based VAIO Flip 11A convertible; arrives in February for $799

...Like its big siblings, the 11A has a 1080p screen that can flip back so that the display is facing away from the keyboard (yep, sort of like the Dell XPS 12). Speaking of the screen, this too uses Sony's Triluminos color-reproduction technology, which first made its debut on the company's Bravia televisions. All told, though, it might make more sense to compare the Flip 11 not to the bigger Flips, but to the VAIO Tap 11, Sony's first Windows 8 tablet. Both have 8-megapixel cameras using Sony's Exmor imaging technology, and both have an N-trig digitizer allowing for pressure-sensitive pen input. Also, both start around $800, which means you can expect similar specs on the inside, too. In this case, that means a quad-core Bay Trail (Pentium) CPU to start, though if you wanted, you could go all the way up to a Core i7 chip instead.

www.engadget.com/gallery/sony-vaio-flip-11a-hands-on/2134975/#!slide=2134975

CES 2014 Hands On: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7AQhZZsoIk

Fuhu DreamTab Hands-on: Bay Trail-T based Premium Kids Tablet (running Android ''Kit Kat'')

When we first heard about the Fuhu DreamTab, thoughts of a glorified Kung Fu Panda tie-in came to mind. We were wrong, and we should have known better because the Fuhu Nabi 2 is already one of our favorite kids tablets. For its new Atom Bay Trail-powered 8-inch and 10-inch slates (on sale this spring), Fuhu and Dreamworks teamed up on everything from the design and packaging to the apps, giving the Kindle Fire HDX a serious run for its money.

http://blog.laptopmag.com/fuhu-dreamtab-hands-on
http://liliputing.com/2014/01/closer-look-fuhus-dreamtab-tablets-kids.html

Laptop Magazine Best of CES 2014 Award - Best Small Tablet

Lenovo ThinkPad 8

Designed for work but just as great for play, Lenovo's ThinkPad 8 stands above the 8-inch Windows tablet crowd with a sharp 8.3-inch, 1920 x 1200-pixel screen, a classy aluminum chassis with elegant ThinkPad aesthetics and a high-res 8-MP rear camera. Unlike its competitors, the ThinkPad 8 uses Intel's fastest Atom Bay Trail processor, the quad-core, 2.4-GHz Z3770. This CPU is fast enough to view 4K videos, crunch complex spreadsheets or play some games. Add in an optional QuickShot cover that opens the camera app when you uncover the lens and you have a business tablet that consumers will love as much as IT departments.

http://blog.laptopmag.com/best-ces-2014-awards?slide=3

More to come.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Bay Trail-M notebooks are hitting the market



http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33596-bay-trail-notebooks-are-hitting-the-market

Here's an interesting comparison, not sure if it was already posted:

Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3740 vs. Z2760

https://ru.intel.com/business/commu...552&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I really wish AMD and Intel would be more forthright in their nomenclature of these chips. When I hear pentium, I immediately think of Core pentium, which while low end is still in a whole different performance bracket than Atom. Same for AMD, the A series nomenclature is also confusing, making it hard to distinguish between Kabini and Richfield.

Personally, I would not consider either Atom or Kabini in anything more that a tablet or convertible of 11.6 inches (or smaller, like the Dell Venue 8 or Asus T300). Just too much loss of performance vs a Core pentium which can be had at very near the same price.

 

[cbn]

And check this out, a sub NUC form factor Mini PC with eMMC:

Looks good. Any word on pricing?

No clue, but I do hope it comes out inexpensive.

(On these minimalistic desktops I really like the idea of eMMC, provided it is fast enough, because it eliminates the neccessity of purchasing a relatively expensive ($50 and up) SATA drive for use as primary storage)

If they gona put a eMMC on there on a M version why not placing a eSATA on there?

No eSATA, but it does have usb 3.0.

also i whould love to see a quad version, also a 2.5" disk fits in there, they just need it to make it a little bit higher and place it below the pcb.

I would like to see more CPUs too. Maybe a N2806 in the future as well?

With regard to SATA ports, Yes at 70mm the board is the same width as a 2.5" drive. So I agree, It would be interesting if they could make a taller enclosure in the future and put a SATA port on the underside of the board like the NUC:

 

[sequoia464]

Glad to see you included the 8" Lenovo - This looks like pretty interesting, was a bit uncertain of the 8" screen, until my wife recently got an 8" Samsung something or another - point is the screen size worked, even for my old eyes.

They even have 128 GB as an option for the EMMC.

Here is a little clip on it - the Verge had an article on it as well but I'm not finding it right now.

http://www.wpcentral.com/hands-on-lenovo-thinkpad-8-windows-tablet

 

[tarlinian]

Both the $99 8" and $59 7" Walmart tablets have 1.5 Ghz dual Core Cortex A9s. In single thread performance, that is going to be noticeably faster than Cortex A7.

Agreed, but even that is not going to be comparable to CloverTrail in power/performance. CT+ was better than Tegra 3 and comparable to early Krait models, both of which had significantly more advanced power management features and were quad core. Claiming that these cheap ARM tablets are equivalent to the sub $200 Intel tablets in performance is just wrong and therefore Intel can't win on price is just wrong. (That's also ignoring the fact that most people think that Allwinnwer and Rockchip, the suppliers for most of these sub $100 tablets don't actually make any money and are living on the ultra cheap capital available in China right now.) Intel's real competition in the low end is Mediatek, where CT+ easily beats their low end offerings. (The issue is mainly in phones where the baseband integration is valuable.)

 

[cbn]

Also, here's a quote from Intel's new CEO:

here's still some shift that has to occur within the company. From the PC mentality into this fast-paced, integrated SoC environment. We still have some of that work to go do. About how fast you can turn out new silicon and what that means. There's a lot of detail behind that but we think that it's still going to be another 6-12 months while we kind-of flush out some of the design methodologies that were already in queue and shift towards to different design technologies. So the actual architecture of how we design an SoC is going to shift in the next year to allow us to churn out many more iterations as we go into 2015.

In the following video starting at 28:45, Yes.....BK does describe Broxton as having a complete new chassis that will allow these iterations and derivatives at a "very fast clip" (according to BK):

http://intelstudios.edgesuite.net/im/2013/archive/bk/archive.html

In fact, he mentions the rate at which the atom derivatives and iterations will be developed will be like their competitors. So that should be interesting because it appears to me one strength ARM has is the ability to fill a great number of small niches due to the enormous number of different SOCs available with a given ARM cpu core.

 

[Sweepr]

Intel finishes work on 64-bit Android 4.4 for Atom-based x86 devices

Devices running Intel’s Silvermont hardware should be able to leverage a 64-bit Android kernel.

Intel isn’t waiting for Google to bring the 64-bit architecture to Android. During the Consumer Electronics Show, Intel had announced that it was working on a 64-bit version of Android KitKat.

Hermann Eul, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Mobile and Communications unit, announced today that the work on the Android kernel is finished, and that manufacturers should be able to utilize the 64-bit architecture on devices that feature Intel’s latest Silvermont hardware. He said, “We don’t want partners to be held up by” Google’s delay in launching a 64-bit Android codebase. “And when Google does provide that, partners can just slot that code into place” on Merrifield systems.

More here: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-finishes-work-64-bit-android-4-4-atom-based-x86-devices/69097.html

@ tarlinian: Welcome to AnandTech.

 

[uribag]

Doesn't matter. Cherry Trail will come in Q3 2014 and will likely be even smaller than Broxton. TSMC's 16nm process doesn't have a die shrink, so Intel's 2 generation lead will be even longer (~1year vs. few months) at 16nm (20nm) vs. 10nm. Intel will have a full 3 generation density lead:

When TSMC has FinFet in 2016, Intel will already have their 3D Tri-Gate for 4 years in 7 architectures (Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Silvermont, Airmont, Goldmont). It will take almost 4 years to get the same density as Intel's 14nm.

Am I wrong or Intel is admitting to have an inferior process than TSMC(on area scaling) at 20/22nm? And forecasting to be better at 16/14nm?

 

[kimmel]

Am I wrong or Intel is admitting to have an inferior process than TSMC(on area scaling) at 20/22nm? And forecasting to be better at 16/14nm?

It's exactly what they are stating. It's been unofficially known for some time that the density of Intel's wires has been not as good as TSMC. AFAIK it's just been a cost tradeoff for Intel for multiple patterning the metal layers to get the density. Also wires get lower performance the smaller they are so density optimized isn't always the best when it comes to performance.

 

[Khato]

Am I wrong or Intel is admitting to have an inferior process than TSMC(on area scaling) at 20/22nm? And forecasting to be better at 16/14nm?

Correct, as is indicated by the fact that TSMC's node labels are slightly smaller than the Intel equivalents. Density-wise it's likely a tad bit more than the difference in node labels suggest, but it's not too far off. The last node where they were comparable was 90nm I believe?

Regardless it's not much of an issue since Intel and TSMC have never been on the same point in that chart for very long. Not to mention the difference in density does result in other transistor performance metrics changing as well.

 

[NTMBK]

Am I wrong or Intel is admitting to have an inferior process than TSMC(on area scaling) at 20/22nm? And forecasting to be better at 16/14nm?

In density, yes, but they have FinFETs and they got to 22nm much faster. Intel has had 22nm for almost 2 years now, whereas we haven't seen 20nm products from TSMC yet.

 

[Homeles]

Am I wrong or Intel is admitting to have an inferior process than TSMC(on area scaling) at 20/22nm? And forecasting to be better at 16/14nm?

Their 22nm process is denser than TSMC's 28nm process (not sure if that's what you were asking). Look closely at the chart. It will however be less dense than TSMC's 20nm, but that won't matter since Intel will have their 14nm process in just a few months after.

 

[SlimFan]

Their 22nm process is denser than TSMC's 28nm process (not sure if that's what you were asking). Look closely at the chart. It will however be less dense than TSMC's 20nm, but that won't matter since Intel will have their 14nm process in just a few months after.

The delta shown between TSMC 28nm and Intel's 22nm area within the chart looks to me to be very small. Given this is Intel's data, I'd be interested in seeing people's thoughts on the core area comparisons between the different architectures. Wasn't Apple's A7 ~3x larger than Silvermont? "Yeah, but it's a different process ... 22 vs 28"... so apparently that isn't relevant?

Maybe the "x86 tax" in terms of area isn't there.

 

[AtenRa]

The delta shown between TSMC 28nm and Intel's 22nm area within the chart looks to me to be very small. Given this is Intel's data, I'd be interested in seeing people's thoughts on the core area comparisons between the different architectures. Wasn't Apple's A7 ~3x larger than Silvermont? "Yeah, but it's a different process ... 22 vs 28"... so apparently that isn't relevant?

Maybe the "x86 tax" in terms of area isn't there.

Apple A7 is 102mm2, exactly the same as Intel Silvermont(BayTrail).