Silverthorne VS ARM, what I have found...
Unless I'm mistaken, I think this article is somewhat misleading... And many people here are perpetuating this idea of a Silverthorne in an iPhone.
Unless I've missed a huge technological breakthrough, even using 45nm and dropping OOO execution is not going to get an x86 CPU like this anywhere close to the power consumption of the Samsung ARM in the iPhone.
Don't the modern ARM chips have much smaller power consumption at Idle vs Silverthorne? Is it possible for the Silverthorne CPU to all but shut down while the phone idles away waiting for a phone call??
Could someone with much more knowledge than I comment on the power consumption at load/idle of the Iphone ARM vs the 45nm Silverthorne??
Ok, yes,
I am responding to my own post. lol. But I have taken some time to research this myself on Google to find out more details on Silverthorne vs ARM.
Based on a number of different articles and Intel presentation slides, it looks like the
Silverthorne will have a
PEAK TDP of between 0.6W -> "sub-2W" depending on model, which are supposed to range between
1Ghz and 2Ghz. The
power consumption at Idle is said to be between 0.01W -> 0.1W depending on model, with these figures EXCLUDING chipset. Also Silverthorne is said to have a new low-power state, called C6.
From Arstechnica, "In order to alleviate some of the power difference between its chips and ARM's, Intel has equipped Silverthorne with a new low-power state, called C6. When Silverthorne is in C6, the only components that it leaves turned on are the SRAM that saves the existing processor state and some circuitry that can wake up the processor again when it's needed. (Getting out of C6 takes about 100 microseconds.) Intel claims that their testing indicates that Silverthorne can spend as much as 90 percent of its time in C6; if that's true, then that will bring the chip's average power dissipation far below its stated TDP. So Intel is counting on a combination of sleep-enabled lower average power and support for the full, awesome expanse of the extended x86 instruction set architecture to make Silverthorne a compelling basis on which to build a generation of mobile internet devices."
For the first generation,
Silverthorne will initially be combined with the
"Menlow" platform which has a seperate chipset and other components. Second generation Silverthorne chips will be integrated with the
"Morrestown" platform which is a
System-on-a-chip (SoC) design. This means that all the components needed to run the platform will be integrated onto one chip, including the processor, chipset/memory controller, Wifi/Ethernet, USB, etc. Possibly even graphics acceleration and video decoding DSPs will be embedded as well.This should allow the platform to further reduce power consumption.
Silverthorne specs:
- performance equivalent to first generation Pentium M (Banias)
- 45nm
- 47M transistors
- 25mm^2
- 533MT/s FSB
- In-order execution with hyperthreading
Competition
Silverthorne is going to have some very strong competition from the ARM SoC world. The most likely direct competitor looks to be the next gen ARM Cortext series, specifically the
Cortext-A9 (out-of-order core) which is based on a 65nm process and will run in a
0.25W TDP. I was unable to find info on the Idle state power consumption of this chip, but it is assumed to be as low as or lower than Silverthorne based upon earlier generation ARM SoCs.
This is a different ARM core than what is currently on the iPhone
(iPhone has an ARM11) and one which will be more powerful, reaching speeds of
1Ghz or more. ARM even claims the
Cortext-A9 will have the same power consumption as the iPhone "ARM11" chip, but increase performance by a factor of FOUR. Also, there are both single-core and multi-core versions of the Cortext A9.
Based on all that information and what the analysts say, it looks like the 1st generation Silverthorne (Menlow platform) may be relegated to UMPC and Intel's new "Mobile Internet Device" (MID) type devices and not quite ready for the smartphone sphere. But this will probably change with the SoC "Morrestown" platform which will reduce power consumption by integrating all the components into one chip.
Here is how Jon Stokes of ArsTechnica ends his article from today (Tues. 5th)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...side-intels-silverthorne-ultramobile-cpu.html)
" Having tried a few of Intel's Silverthorne-based prototypes, I must say that I wasn't particularly impressed. I own a Nokia N800 and an iPhone, both of which are ARM-based and both of which give a nearly complete Internet experience in a smaller form factor than Silverthorne will ever fit into. Indeed, at one point during a sit-down with Intel the rep told me that the warm, bulky prototype I was holding would give me the "full Internet in your pocket." I started chuckling, pulled out my iPhone, and said, "I already have that." He gamely responded that the iPhone's browser doesn't support Flash (in my opinion that's a feature, not a bug), but my point was made.
So Silverthorne is really a transitional product; it's Intel's first, slightly awkward foray into a market that it intends to eventually dominate by doing what it always does, and that's produce ever smaller, cheaper, and faster chips that support the world's most popular ISA. This recipe may ultimately work for Intel in the embedded market the way that it has worked elsewhere, but that day won't come just yet.
... So Silverthorne is just the start of something, and to ARM, MIPS, and the other established chipmakers who currently own the embedded space, it's Intel's way of saying "game on."
For more info on Silverthorne, see:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...side-intels-silverthorne-ultramobile-cpu.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverthorne_(CPU)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=987
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9859616-7.html
For more info on the ARM Cortext-A9, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture
http://newlc.com/arm-unveils-cortex-a9-processors-scalable-performance-and-low-power-designs
http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARMCortex-A9_MPCore.html
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2917028234.html