Business - With Atom,Intel guns for ARM's global market

Chitta Pantulu

Voice-based mobile internet devices to hit market by next year

BANGALORE: Intel, the world’s largest computer chip maker, on Tuesday announced the launch of the Intel Atom Processor N270. Senior officials from the company said in Bangalore that the chip would power anything that is not a personal computer (PC).

The chip, smaller than a 25-paise coin in size and consuming less than 2.5 watt of power, will be used in an array of small-sized devices, beginning with simple point-of-sale (POS) terminals to in-vehicle infotainment systems, digital signages, digital security systems and miniature medical patient monitoring systems.

Intel has identified 30 unique segments in India for non-PC applications. The company demonstrated referral designs for two of them, which are being developed into devices by independent companies. An earlier version of Intel Atom for small footprint laptops, or netbooks and nettops as Intel calls them, and ultra mobile PC was launched in June 2008.

However, what was left unsaid at the announcement on Tuesday is that this would be the first time the chip giant will take head on rival ARM (previously Advanced RISC Machine), which is the owner of the 32-bit RISC processor architecture and powers 75% of all non-PC electronic devices across the world.

Portable devices such as calculators, PDAs and mobile phones (including the Apple iPhone, the iPod Touch, or the latest Nokia phone) to media players and handheld gaming units to computer peripherals such as printers, modems and networking products and storage devices are just some of the non-PC gadgets that use ARM CPUs.

Clearly then, Intel’s competition this time round will be much different from what it has faced so far from the likes of AMD and other smaller computer chip makers that have miniscule market shares. The dividing line between the connected computer and the handheld is fast disappearing with smaller form factors and technologies coming into play. Given this, the game will only get more interesting.

R Ravichandran, director (sales), Intel South Asia, told DNA Money, “This is definitely a new segment for Intel but the focus clearly is the internet, which is going mobile, and personal.” While first-generation mobile internet devices (MIDs) based on Atom would be mainly for data, the second-generation MIDs would also be about voice, he said, adding that such devices would hit the market around the second half of next year. That clearly means Intel will be taking on ARM in the mobile voice space, which is dominated by players such as Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Samsung,
STMicroelectronics and others that build chips for mobile phones based on the ARM architecture.

Sanat Rao, marketing director (emerging markets), embedded and communications group, Intel, said that until the MIDs are launched, a host of other devices with Atom embedded chips would roll out of the Intel India Design House with a focus on emerging markets.