Power Bits: April 14
Power Struggle Heats Up—So To Speak
The battle between ARM and Intel has come down to a fight over power—which one can run at the lowest power.
This is becoming particularly important in the tablet market, which is becoming the tool of choice for consumers of information—executives and salespeople on the go—rather than creators of content. And it’s one that could seriously eat into Intel’s mainstay computer market.
Intel’s latest salvo in this war involves the next version of its Atom processor, code-named Oak Trail, which is aimed at the tablet market. That will be followed by the 32nm Cedar trail. New in the technology is what Intel is billing “all-day” battery life and “enhanced deeper sleep.
Despite its prowess in the PC world, though, this market appears to be ARM’s to lose. Apple’s iPad runs on an A4 chip, which is a 45nm package-on-package that includes an ARM Cortex-A8 paired with a graphics processor. ARM also has made some inroads into the Android tablet space along with MIPS, which was one of the first processor makers to embrace Android. Both run at lower power than Intel’s Atom chips, in large part because there is no x86 legacy to support. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4
