A new Atom could lead to more powerful small things. On Tuesday, Intel announced the newest incarnation of its Atom processor-based platform, which offers lower power consumption and higher performance for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile products than the earlier platform.
Previously known under the codename Moorestown, the platform equips mobile devices for full 1080p high-definition video, 3-D graphics, multi-tasking, multi-point videoconferencing and voice, and there’s support for Wi-Fi, 3G/HSPA, and WiMAX. The chipmaker described it as bringing a “‘PC-like’ experience” to mobile devices.
‘Opening the Door’
Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher said in a statement that the new platform is “Intel’s first product that is opening the door to Intel Architecture in the smartphone market segment.”
Ross Rubin, Director of Industry Analysis for Consumer Technology at the NPD Group, noted that smartphones have been built mostly around the ARM processor, while the Atom has been a leader in netbooks. Although the new Intel platform could move into smartphones, he pointed in particular to the battle taking place between ARM and Atom in the emerging product categories known as smartbooks, e-book readers, and tablets.
Rubin said that ARM has had the power efficiency advantage. He added that the “first-generation Atom has been a good fit for the netbook market,” but it was not “powerful enough to compete with the ARM designs” used by Apple, Dell, and others in smartphones. Apple’s iPad tablet is also built around an ARM design. ARM Holdings, based in England, licenses its designs to a wide range of manufacturers, including to Apple for the custom A4 chip used in the iPad.
Windows, Android, and MeeGo
It could be seen as ironical that Intel, whose processors have so dominated the desktop and laptop categories that competitors have struggled to gain a position, is now faced with being the outsider in the smartphone…