Intel Moorestown is the codename for the silicon giants latest ultra portable platform. You may already think Atom is already ultra-portable suitable, but instead of netbooks we’re talking thinner; to the world of tablets (again), even smaller to Smartphones and also expanding the compact systems like in car computers and even possibly electrical goods or home-automation.
Moorestown is more than an Atom on a diet though, the whole thing from CPU core to platform has undergone a whole host of power optimizations and design tweaks away from the PC platform and converting it ready for our Smartphone’s with limited battery life and physical space.
Intel is clearly stepping up to directly take on ARMs recent market successes, and with Intel’s recent partnership with industry leading phone manufacturer, Nokia (the Finnish company still sells more mobile phones than anyone else), it’s already got a lot of potential sales and market-share at hand.
The new Atom Z600 series includes specific support for cameras, video playback (even HDMI!), USB ports and fast NAND flash storage. However, surprisingly Intel has gone to PowerVR for the graphics – the same guys who supply many ARM parts, including the iPhone too. This, at least, should make mobile games easily portable between platforms for developers.
The downside is that the two chip combination of Atom Z600 series + its PCH controller are not enough for a functional phone though. You’ll still need additional WiFi (WiMAX?), 3G, power management and touch-screen chips to handle the other functions. That all costs additional size, power and development cost: all very prohibitive factors in something that has to fit in the palm of your hand and last for days on end.
This is all well and good though, but the limiting factor in any new product is software, fashionable and affordable products and its overall ease of use. Intel’s answer is Moblin, but unlike Google Android, Windows 7 Phone Series and OSX on iPhone, customers will be able to customize and change Mobiln to their own specifications. That may be attractive to Telco’s and third party manufacturers but in an ecosystem where the popular phone OS developers listed above are moving towards unified platforms for ease of use, it could be prohibitive for Intel and its partners in the long term.
However in cooperation with Google, Intel has already helped port the Android OS to work with its new Atom Z600 series CPUs (since ARM and Intel x86 code is incompatible), so in this respect customers won’t know the difference.
The future of Smartphones and other lightweight or integrated PCs seems evidently open still – and with a lot of competition inevitably breeding innovation to gain an advantage, we hope it stays that way!
