Tech | January 07, 2009 | 24 comments

Intel’s dominance is challenged by a low-power upstart

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/technology/30chip.html?_r=1

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islek
From mainframes to minicomputers and then PCs, each new computing generation has displaced its predecessor by reaching a broader audience and costing far less. And each time, the dominant company in one generation loses control in the next

That’s why the PC industry’s commanding chip maker, Intel, might do well to be alarmed by the computer chips being designed by Qualcomm, a maker of chips for cellphones. An engineer at Qualcomm’s gleaming corporate campus here demonstrated a palm-sized circuit board capable of displaying high-definition video. What was striking about the demonstration was not the quality of the video images, which is now commonplace. Rather it was that the microprocessor chip, called Snapdragon, drives the display with less than half the power of a similar chip recently introduced by Intel. Qualcomm designers say it will also cost less.

As the PC shrinks in size, it is on a collision course with the multifunction cellphone. Many expect the resulting impact to transform both devices and all the companies that make them. The new smartphones, always-on portable Internet devices that are part cellphone, part computer, change the rules of the game in computing because computing speed — at which Intel excelled — is no longer the most important factor. For a cellphone relying on a small battery, how efficiently a chip uses power becomes more important.

The new mobile world represents a special challenge for Intel, which until four years ago ignored the issue of increasing power consumption in its flagship X86 chips, which have been the PC industry standard for almost three decades.

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24 comments // Intel’s dominance is challenged by a low-power upstart

  • Ayahuasca2012
  • Paddlenround
    • 0
      Paddlenround  

    • I think it will be the other way around. I think cell phones will continue to be integrated into computers. You will see the calling and constant connectivity being further integrated. The handset will simply be a wirelessly connected device to your computer which will be calling over VoIP.

    • 3 years ago
  • petarro
    • 0
      petarro  

    • Bah! Intel makes chips at his own speed. Remember, they need you to purchase the 2.4ghz, and then the 2.8ghz, and then the dual core, and then the Hyper-V and then the Quad-Core... They need everyone to keep upgrading!

    • 3 years ago
  • retran
    • 0
      retran  
    • petarro:

      Yep. They're a monopoly and behave like one. No leaps and bounds, just mundane expected results. Sure a leap or so when competition threatens. That's why they have a giant stashes of engineers located in bunkers around the world.

    • 3 years ago
  • SHAWN_RITTIMAN
  • retran
    • 0
      retran  
    • SHAWN_RITTIMAN:

      Zero chance of that happening. This is Qualcomm after all: a notorious patent hoarder. They get a big bulk of their revenue collecting patent royalty, not from manufacturing and distribution. In the past they kept up their R&D unit almost purely so they wouldn't get holding company status. Sure they put out new things now and again, but not so serious. Perhaps this will be their next patent hoarding? Or just noise.

    • 3 years ago
  • hapykap
    • 0
      hapykap  

    • I had a teacher tell me back in '92 that one day music was going to be digitized and played on device about as big as a credit card and that you would be able to play it through your car stereo. MP3?...

      I didn't think much about it at the time but he had to have read about it somewhere back then. I think he said something about the government has technology that is more advanced than what is available to Joe Public.

      Competition is what drives us to better stuff in everything we do as humans.

      I want a phone that I can process my digital pictures from my 10x separate camera and be able to print from my phone to a portable printer the pictures and scan docs and fax docs at the same time my phone is jammin' out one of my favorite tunes into my Bose earbud earphones.

      Live Learn Love, Understand Grow Evolve, Mind Focus Concentration Action -Create Greatness and share it with the world...

    • 3 years ago
  • asherp
  • ahdbahd
    • 0
      ahdbahd  

    • The law of accelerated returns (Kurzweil: technological change is exponential. The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. ) is marvelously illustrated by this story. So was Intel's replacing IBM Chips. Etc.

    • 3 years ago
  • 02
    • 0
      02  

    • I want dual or quad eight-cores.
      But also, you want to see something - little screens do not do it.

    • 3 years ago
  • retran
    • 0
      retran  

    • Qualcomm is hardly some seat-of-the-pants upstart. They're an established integrated microprocessor firm. They own patent rights to much of the mobile technology out there. They've been that way for quite some time. But they're nowhere near the giant Intel is. I'm sure Intel will attempt to crush them if they become even remotely a threat like they finally (sadly) did to AMD this past year.

    • 3 years ago
  • VegaNerDiva
    • 0
      VegaNerDiva  

    • Intel yer nawt so swell...
      I've always liked AMD products more than Intel, just seem to hold up better. No company is perfect but Advanced Micro Devices is still pretty nifty.
      I have a Nvidia 8800 GT & it rocks tew.

      I'd like to see where Japan takes this technology since dey are ahead of the U.S. as far as that cell industry.

    • 3 years ago
  • CalgarC
    • 0
      CalgarC  

    • yeah but do cellphones have enough power to render out full songs and midi datat using 2 gigs of memory... does it have the proccessing power to handle a studio. i have a "2.8ghz 64 x2" 4 gigs of memory and i can barely handle the audio

    • 3 years ago
  • akamaial
  • Pattyhax
  • phillyphil
    • 0
      phillyphil  
    • Image

    • ummmm, iphone, blackberry et al.... i think this "merging" has been happening for a while now. tech will improve and who knows where we will go next.

      see: transhumanists

    • 3 years ago
  • strive4peace
  • SHAWN_RITTIMAN
    • 0
      SHAWN_RITTIMAN  

    • Heavy competition forces technology forward at an incredible rate! Other than the affordable flying car, everything the future was promised to be is here!

    • 3 years ago
  • TReaper405
  • Nancyf
  • islek
    • 0
      islek  

    • Do you think phone and computers will eventually merge completely into one product? How small do you think such a versatile product will get?

    • 3 years ago
  • CalgarC
  • Dmitri_Molotov
    • 0
      Dmitri_Molotov  
    • islek:

      In a smaller package. They're called comlinks (or "coms" for short) and they're already here. The iPhone was the first one, and they'll eventually be commonplace. For example:
      You wake up and check the time on the small OLED screen on your comlink. You want to check your email, so you slip on it's electrode net which reads and writes brainwaves. As you do, you see the Augmented Reality (AR) interface come on. It's basically a webpage overlayed on your view. You telepathically go to your email. Unfortunately, you're gullible enough to "click" on a spam message. It tells you about the product, and gives you a full-sensory demonstration of it. You delete it, and move on to the rest.
      After checking your mail, you want to play some games. No problem, you go into full simsense mode which puts your physical body in a sleep-like state. The trodenet gives you full sensory immersion and complete control of the game (a boon to the previously declining porn industry). First person shooters are just like the real thing, except the experience of dying is "turned down" so you don't psychosomatically die IRL.
      As for size, you can get a comlink implanted (though it's going to cost you) but most are about iPhone size or smaller (only serious gaming machines are larger).

    • 3 years ago
  • petarro
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