

Intel wades into smartphone wars - Moorestown Atom - ableal
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/05/intel_debuts_moorestown_for_smartphones/

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hga
The key graph: " _But despite his enthusiasm, Chandrasekher refused to say
which smartphone vendors have climbed aboard Intel's new smartphone
bandwagon:_ ".

"You can't fool Mother Nature", and until and unless Intel gets some design
wins we won't have any idea if they're going to be competitive in this space.
I seriously wonder about their contention that they haven't missed the boat,
the ARM ecosystem is so big and so healthy it's likely Intel will need the
standard factor of 10 advantage to get anywhere ... and I don't sense they've
got that.

And as someone else has pointed out in another ARM vs. Atom thread, with ARM
you have a zillion vendors to choose from, with Intel only one.

As ableal says, more likely a play to fend off competition in the tablet and
notebook markets. Dislodging ARM in smartphones will be nearly impossible, but
if viewed as a disruptive technology ARM just might eat a lot of Intel's lunch
over the long term absent Intel getting serious about low power.

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ableal
Some good-looking (cherry-picked) numbers in the piece, and also some good
comments at the site.

I agree with one of the takes there: this may not get into, or make sense for,
actual cellphone SoCs; on the other hand, it might help stem the rising ARM &
co tide into the tablet (netbook, etc.) market.

