| Will Atom bomb? |
Jun. 03, 2008
Intel's Atom processor is the talk of Computex. The low-powered x86-based chip is racing to market in a flurry of miniature notebooks, with low-cost desktops and Atom-based iPhones to follow. But, will anyone buy them?
Don't get me wrong. The x86 architecture is really great for anything with a user interface. That's because most software that has a user interface -- i.e., PC applications -- was developed and runs best on x86. It's especially true for Windows applications, since Windows only runs on x86. But it's mostly true for Linux applications, too, despite Linux's support for dozens of "embedded" architectures.
For sure, it's great to see a new micro-architecture from Intel. Despite the barrage of marketing terms like "Duo" and "Core2" and so on, everything post-Pentium IV has been variations on a single theme called "Pentium M."
And, it's great to see another low-power, small-footprint implementation of x86, like Via's Esther/C7 stuff. Without all branch-prediction blocks needed for out-of-order execution, Intel can fit more processors onto a single wafer, lowering chip footprint, power consumption, and cost, too. Energy costs being what they are, this could be good.
And yet... there are things that worry me about Atom, and where Intel has positioned it.- Atom is still bigger and thirstier than ARM-based competitors like NVidia's new ARM11-based Tegra, let alone more modern ARM-based parts like TI's Cortex-A8-powered OMAP3xxx. Excepting a reported iPhone win for Atom, filed in the "we'll see" department, ARM will remain the norm in truly mobile devices in the near term, I suspect.
- At OEM pricing levels, Atom parts for low-cost desktops will go for $25, while low-cost notebook chips go for $45. Meanwhile, for $50 retail, I can buy a dual-core Celeron clocked at 1.6GHz, and probably get four times better performance. My PC will burn 65 Watts instead of 25 Watts. Do I care all that much?
- Atom has a couple of iterations of silicon to go through before performance will get optimized, and even then, it may be about half that of a similarly clocked Pentium M... er, Core Duo.
- Competitor Via, whose in-order parts are very mature, has a lower-cost option than Atom in its C7, as well as a pin-compatible higher-performance option with its newly announced Nano processor. Which supports 64-bit instructions. Actually, Atom may, too, Via CPU chief Glenn Henry surmises, with the feature left "fallow" until an opportune marketing moment.
Most of all, I worry how x86's user interface advantage will translate into the product categories where Intel is postioning Atom. Do people want to run Excel on a smart phone with a 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 display? Can anyone except children in developing nations type on a 6-inch keyboard? Who buys desktops anymore, other than gamers, and what kind of WoW framerates can Atom actually deliver?
It boils down to this. So far, Intel is positioning Atom squarely in the "network centric computing" markets:- "Netbooks" or low-cost notebooks
- "Nettops" or low-cost desktops
- "Mobile Internet devices" (MIDs) resembling the iPhone
Yet, x86's nucleus of strength if you will is not so much in network computing, but rather in fat client applications with rich user interfaces. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
-- Henry Kingman
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