Both Apple ’s iPhone and iPad and Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon chips are based on ARM computer architecture , as are almost all cell phone processor . But where is Intel and the x86 ? Can the world ’s largest semiconductor unit company thwart the world ’s embracement of ARM ?
Electronics are shrinking faster than Las Vegas caparison prices , the market for 2D kiddie film , and Lindsey Lohan ’s showbiz career . But for electronics , at least , shrinking is dear . Today ’s cellphone sound , tablets , and other voguish mobile gismo would be insufferable without the miniaturized electronics of scheme - on - microprocessor chip ( SoC ) processors .
Indeed , SoCs are all the rage in today ’s gadget - loving technical school circles . So why is Intel nowhere to be found ?
SoCs: Your Basic Primer
SoCs cram essential organization functions into a single chip . Ideally , the SoC would be the only chip , but few SoCs are so well integrated . Usually , a few smaller chips must be added for extra functions . This tote up bulk , and in a mobile gadget , size matters .
The other crucial factor is power . The less electricity a machine consumes , the longer it can run on small-scale batteries , and the less heating plant it dissipates . engineer must juggle these factors to observe the idealistic balance for their hardware designs .
To complicate matters further , users keep want more feature . When cell phones bring still cameras , they needed persona C.P.U. and extra computer storage . Now those photographic camera are shoot TV , too , so they need video processors and even more storage . Two - elbow room video for Skype ? Add a 2d tv camera and more horsepower . HD video recording ? Ditto . It never ends .
Two of the most powerful folk of smartphone SoCs are Snapdragon from Qualcomm and OMAP fromTexas Instruments(TI ) . Known as program central processor , these buffalo chip are awesomely complex , as the OMAP4 stoppage diagram below shows . Although their central processor are n’t as knock-down as today ’s PC processor , they are as fast as the PC procs of a few years ago and typically sip less than one watt - a arresting combination of performance and office efficiency .
Texas Instruments ’ belated SoC , the OMAP44x , is a dual - heart chip that uses ARM ’s most advanced architecture , Cortex - A9 . As you’re able to see from this diagram , the SoC handles pretty much every function that , in a traditional microcomputer , would be carry through by separate computer hardware components . The picture subsystem uses the same 3-D speedup computer architecture as Apple ’s A4 , and supports solvent up to 1680×1050 .
Equally impressive is their large - scale of measurement consolidation . The TI and Qualcomm SoCs are pile with features not yet retrieve in PC C.P.U. , such as exceptional hardware for audio , TV , graphics , effigy capture , information compressing , cryptography , networking , security system , GPS piloting , and wireless communications . They also have built - in interfaces for keypads , keyboards , I / O ports , microphones , speakers , and touch screens . Power management is especially advanced . They can restrict each part of the poker chip at different speeds and close off racing circuit when they ’re not needed .
X86: Powerful-and Power-Hungry
Intel is trying hard to break into the SoC marketplace but is hampered by an x86 architecture that ’s historically geared toward high performance , not low power . Virtually all software program processor use ARM , which is optimized for power efficiency and crushed cost .
ARM has another reward : assailable licensing . Unlike Intel , ARM does n’t trade chips . Instead , ARM sells licenses to its CPU computer architecture and CPU core . ARM ’s army of licensees ( like Freescale , Marvell , Samsung , Qualcomm , and TI , to name just a few ) designing and betray the actual potato chip while ARM ride back and pick up royalties . Intel wo n’t openly license the x86 , so Intel ’s customers are special to the SoCs that Intel offering . Intel launch a custom intent computer program last twelvemonth , but it appears to have fizzle .
So far , Intel ’s software program processors are n’t as integrate as the sound Snapdragon and OMAP micro chip . Case in point : Intel ’s latest intersection , the Atom - based Moorestown chipset . Although it ’s much in force than the previous Menlow chipset , Moorestown still requires two chips to parallel the software - processor functions that TI ’s OMAP4430 delivers in one chip . The Intel chips are also more than twice the sizing of the OMAP4430 and have about 50 pct more alive power than the OMAP4430 , by some estimation .
The latest trend is to integrate more wireless functions into software CPU . For years , nomadic headphone have used a disjoined baseband central processing unit that converts analog wireless - frequency signal into digital data and frailty versa . Adding these single-valued function to the software processor decimate the baseband processor , but it ’s unmanageable to integrate analog and digital social function without make noise and fabrication problem .
rise to the challenge , Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon QSD8650 combines a cellular baseband processor with a full - sport software processor . It even incorporates a mogul - management cow dung that would ordinarily be separate . Another Qualcomm SoC , the QTR8600 , integrates cellular tuner single-valued function with Bluetooth , FM radio , and GPS . Even Intel ’s next - contemporaries Medfield SoC wo n’t go that far .
Intel is attempt to catch up through acquirement . The fellowship recently acquired the assets of Comsys , a small wireless caller , and will in all probability buy the wireless business unit of Infineon , a major provider to Apple , Nokia , and Samsung . In addition , Intel has licensed engineering from Nokia .
Traditionally , Intel ’s advantages have been world - class cow dung - fabrication engineering and enormous product electrical capacity . However , Intel fabricates Moorestown in an older 45 nm process instead of the smaller 32 nm process introduced for microcomputer central processor this yr . Qualcomm and TI are still using 45 New Mexico for Snapdragon and OMAP4 , so Intel could be exploit its technology advantage more aggressively . But PC central processor are Intel ’s John Cash moo-cow , so Intel wo n’t cook up its slow - deal SoCs in 32 micromillimeter until Medfield debut next year .
Another problem for Intel is system software program . Since the first IBM personal computer in 1981 , Intel has revel a symbiotic human relationship with Microsoft ’s popular DOS and Windows operating systems . But Microsoft ’s mastery on PCs is n’t translating into similar success on mobile phones and lozenge .
Last April , Microsoft introduced its own smartphone , the Kin . Never heard of it ? Kin was bolt down only six weeks after launching . And in the wake of Apple ’s red-hot - selling iPad , Hewlett - Packard pull in one’s horns a Windows - base tablet even before instauration . Intel is hedging its bets with two GNU / Linux - based operating systems ( Moblin and MeeGo ) , but they ’re looking like also - rans against Apple ’s slick Io and Google ’s fast - rising Android .
The simple truth is that Intel needs the mobile market more than the roving market place needs Intel . ARM ’s lower - power processors already eclipse the market , they ’re growing more brawny each twelvemonth , and they have a magnanimous software package base . Marvell , Qualcomm , and probably Apple have ARM architectural licenses , so they can design their own ARM - compatible processors - something Intel wo n’t allow with the x86 . To out - wrestle ARM , Intel take something better , not something almost as good .
By the end of this decade , we may see the first single - chip smartphone or tablet . This super - SoC will believably be a pile chip that combines the memory and processor in one package - technically , not a single chip , but close enough . On the other hand , new features yet to be imagined may still take some auxiliary check . But it ’s a certainty that SoCs will keep let smaller , quicker , and better .
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