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Intel Introduces Atom Chips For New Devices
angry tapir writes "Not only has Intel recruited another company to produce Atom CPUs, as covered earlier on Slashdot, the chipmaker also unveiled four Atom chips that will go into devices such as entertainment systems for cars, videoconferencing devices, robots and interactive kiosks. The Z500-series Atom processors are integrated chips the size of a penny that draw little power and do not require fans to operate. The chips draw 2.5 watts of power or less and run at speeds of between 1.10GHz and 1.6GHz. The chips offer integrated 2D and 3D graphics and will be manufactured using Intel's existing 45-nanometer process."
Still 10 billion shipments behind ARM.
Australian, British, Canadian, Irish, pre-decimal OR actually not a penny at all but a US cent?
I remember going to an Intel job fair back in late 2005. During the fair, Intel told people that we are no longer in a day and age where everyone wants the fastest processor possible; for most computing tasks, the processors we have are fast enough and people are more interested in something that is inexpensive and lightweight.
Indeed, the Intel atom is a good deal faster than the original Cray.
I feel Windows XP is Microsoft's last release where they made improvements to the operating system that significantly affected the end-user's experience; it was a version of Windows with real memory protection. People's opposition to Microsoft basically shoving Vista down people's throat (however, one can easily buy XP by doing an appropriate shopping.google.com search) is well-justified. Vista doesn't really offer anything that XP doesn't have. [1]
I don't think the ARM processor is going to be real competition. Right now, a netbook can be had for as little as $200 (I have seen Dell have their low-end Linux Mini 9 on sale for $200 twice in the last month); the main expense with a netbook is the case, the screen, and the keyboard; the processor is not a significant expense. Nor is Windows XP, which Microsoft is making available for $40-$50 to netbook OEMs (and is forced to continually make available because of competition from Linux)
- Sam
[1] ClearType support for XP is a free download from Microsoft, along with the Vista fonts. Anyway, I don't like ClearType myself; I think Verdana is the perfect screen font and my eyes are trained to look at Verdana without anti-aliasing on the screeen.
Still 10 billion shipments behind ARM.
And 3 orders of magnitude short of ARM's power consumption.
We are just now remembering that there are a multitude of applications where watts matter.
It's nice that Intel wants to help in this field also.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
There will be need for high clock speeds in some applications, while there will be a need for low power consumption in other applications. There will always be a competition in both those areas. But at present it seems that there is more requirement for power efficient processors because of rise in cell phones and hand held devices like internet tablets and PSPs and so on. The demand for high speed is in fields that are computationally intensive and oftentimes memory intensive.
Face your daemons!
Who in their right mind would develop robotics on x86?
There are a million different processors that would be much better suited for it.
Back when they were producing XScale/StrongARM, they had a decent instruction set (and lower power usage).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The CPU only using 2.5W is already quite nice, but Intel doesn't want Atom chips to be used in "nice" computers seemingly, and we're stuck using crappy old chipsets with 20W+ power consumption with them.
VIA Nano is nicer seemingly, just too bad you can't actually buy it anywhere.
Came perilously close to buying a beagleboard this morning for a roll-it-yourself home media server (NAS / uPnP and so on), and just generally playing around with, when I discovered that it doesn't have onboard networking.
I don't want to have to hang a USB network dongle on it and then deal with the driver issues, not to mention that 1Gbps networking would be nice and the 480mpbs of USB seriously crimps that already (though then again storage would be on USB as well, so I suppose it wouldn't be a real limit).
Anyone know any competitive products that feature good performance and onboard networking...and maybe eSata (and maybe a h.264 processor chip along with 1080p functionality? Maybe a kitchen sink)? The BeagleBoard looks 90% there, but for toying around uses the lack of a network port just kills it for me.
(Sidenote: I have a DS106j NAS and it is a great device but is brutally underpowered. Despite heralding its 1Gbps network connection, the thing can't push 1/4 of the speed of 100Mbps networking, which makes it very slow for larger files and media browsing)
Finally? Have you not been paying attention for years?
Looking at what they're doing, it doesn't look like these are really new parts, just requalified for an extended temp. range and put in a package that is more robust and less expensive to use.
-- All that's left of me, is slight insanity, whats on the right, I don't know. -- Bob Mould
The ever escalating frequency wars ended about 4 or 5 years ago. Welcome back. From where rock you were hiding under. ;)
In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. -T.S. Eliot
I think the rise of the cheap ARM linux netbook is something that scares both Intel and Microsoft. As consumers we will be the winners of the resulting battles. Personally, I can't wait for a linx netbook with a ARM length battery life. Just don't see what the Wintel world could offer me that could possibly compete. Maybe MS could try WinCE on ARM, but that won't have the world of software ARM linux has. If all the software is portable you can go for what ever processor architecture best for the job.
2.5W for cpu and 15W or so for chipset to get access to memory/etc. So not even in the ballpark.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
To be fair, the core wars heated up just as the megahertz wars were winding down, so he might have been in a refugee camp all this time.
If AMD has abandoned the line.
There are some ARM products in the pipeline though... This may be a strategy to cap their high end, or at least fill the hole.
Or maybe like I said, it is about enabling us to do stuff because the hardware is capable and helping us explore the potentials of new technologies is part of their new perspective. That is what the CEO said, and I believe him.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
i remember reading about these chips on wikipedia recently. this got me searching and i found an article on anandtech.com from last april describing these chips. so how is this news?