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Intel's Silverthorne Ultra-Mobile Proecessor Now Called 'Atom'

I would love to see this in the iPhone/iPod Touch but I wonder if it will consume a small enough amount of power, let alone fit in an iPhone.

And it seems odd for Intel to announce this on a Sunday, not that it really matters.
 
trademark violation?

There is already an Atom microcontroller. Even has an embedded Basic version.

Did Intel pay up front, or are they about to pay later?
 
11800506 said:
I would love to see this in the iPhone/iPod Touch but I wonder if it will consume a small enough amount of power, let alone fit in an iPhone.
Click to expand...

It isn't suitable for an iPhone, but a future 32nm version could be. It's called "Moorestown" - it has the power consumption we're looking for, on-die memory controller and graphics (like the iPhone's current processor) and is due in Q4 2009.


Apple founded ARM in 1990 (together with Acorn) with ultra low power consumption processors as a primary goal. The first ARM processor was used in the Newton MessagePad.

They sold off their stake in ARM over time to get themselves through a rough patch in their history. It's the most successful architecture with 10 billion processors shipped as of last month!
 
Why the name change, is that a preproduction/postproduction thing?

How about "either the rumored Apple tablet/PDA AND the next generation iPhone"?
 
sleepingworker said:
Is the Diamondville Atom processor then perfect for the MBA?
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Not really, it doesn't have anywhere near the performance of the Core 2 Duo.

It would however be natural to replace the underclocked Pentium M in the AppleTV with an Atom Processor.

It would be well suited to a tablet device.
 
sterlingindigo said:
Why the name change, is that a preproduction/postproduction thing?
Click to expand...

Yeah, Intel doesn't use their codenames for marketing.

For example:
The Penryn and Merom processors are marketed as "Core 2 Duo"
The Woodcrest, Harpertown and Clovertown procesors are marketed as "Xeon"
 
Here's to a launch of a bigger iPod touch like device.... support HD iPod content (same content on your iPod or HD TV).

Allow it to support email, calendar and to do lists, and you'll have all the GTD type people (that would be me) racing to the apple store to pick one up...

All signs point to yes:
- "iPod Touch is a platform"
- Intel is creating this chip for Mobile Internet Devices
- iPod Touch has been successful
- Apple already created the User Experience (Multitouch)
- If you can run amlost a full OS - you can have BT connected keyboard and mouse, if you want to use more like a PC
- I've been wanting something like this

There are so many other positives from all this - I'm looking forward to something big on Thursday.
 
iPhone RAM problem

The iPhone CPU only currently runs at about 412 mhz, but I've read that it's capable of up to 620 mhz. Apple has the firmware underclock it to preserve battery life. So in all honesty, the CPU is only running at 66% capacity.

If you're serious about making the iPhone snappier, I think the best thing they could do would be to double the RAM. I think it's obvious that 128 MB just isn't enough for certain things. That's why the web pages in Safari go blank when you have more than 2 or 3 open. That's why the music stops playing when you're listening to something and using Safari. More ram could help it run more complicated applications and run them each more smoothly.

The Silverthorne processers seem more like something for an :apple: Tablet device. Some sort of mini, hand held computer device that isn't quite as tiny as a phone.
 
louden said:
Here's to a launch of a bigger iPod touch like device.... support HD iPod content (same content on your iPod or HD TV).

All signs point to yes:
- "iPod Touch is a platform"

There are so many other positives from all this - I'm looking forward to something big on Thursday.
Click to expand...

Not this Thursday that's for sure. Maybe this Thursday next year.
Yes iPod touch is a platform, and at this stage that platform is ARM based, and fits in your pocket. Two things a device based on this chip wouldn't be.

There are two ways for Apple to approach this chip.
Either any device made with this version of atom is either going to be part of the Mac OS platform family, which means they would need to be further along the multitouch transition and training programme(already started with MacAir).

Or they'd have to transition iPod/TouchOS to Core Instruction set and there is no point doing that till they can do the whole platform. Like the original Intel transition.

As already pointed out Atom ain't going near an iPhone till the late next year at best. So while this chip gives Apple a chance in the future to merge their two platforms, it would seem there isn't a driver to do it. As they seem to have a few other projects on the burners to really take on that one as well.

They could knock out a big touch (say 5inch screen still fits in your pocket) tomorrow on the ARM platform if they really wanted to. Me i'd like that.
 
louden said:
All signs point to yes:
- "iPod Touch is a platform"
- Intel is creating this chip for Mobile Internet Devices
- iPod Touch has been successful
- Apple already created the User Experience (Multitouch)
- If you can run amlost a full OS - you can have BT connected keyboard and mouse, if you want to use more like a PC
- I've been wanting something like this

There are so many other positives from all this - I'm looking forward to something big on Thursday.
Click to expand...

I'm with you.
 
So does this really have a legitimate chance of being the processor in the 2nd gen iPhone??? If not what other viable options are out there?
 

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I'm suing!

I saw an Apple presentation that mentioned Silverthorne and now I find out that Apple never had any plans to use such a product EVER! I don't care if you say that Atom is just as good, I had my heart set on Silverthorne and I'm going to sue for damages and mental distress!
 
retroneo said:
Dudes this is not for an iPhone.

The typical power consumption for Silverthorne "Atom" processor WITH its Poulsbo chipset is around 10x higher than the iPhones!

The Samsung S3C6400 has a max of 279 milliwatts (the iPhone's uses even less than this as it is quite underclocked) and that includes the companion chipset, graphics etc, and uses next to nothing when idle.
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Exactly! The comments about using Silverthorne in the iPhone/touch are getting annoying. While Silverthorne is a VERY low-power x86-CPU, it's still nowhere near the Arm-CPU that power the iPhone! And the Arm-CPU includes 3D graphics accelerator, whereas Silverthorne does not!

So currently the CPU + GPU in the iPhone consumes WAY less power than Silverthorne alone does!

Silverthorne would be ideal for tiny laptops and the like, but something like iPhone or iPod touch is NOT where it's meant to be used!
 
Would this processor work for something like a next-gen MacBook Air, or is it too small? We've already heard it's too large for an iPhone.
 
Beric said:
Would this processor work for something like a next-gen MacBook Air, or is it too small? We've already heard it's too large for an iPhone.
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It would wokr fine in a device like Air, but then we need to ask that what would happen to the performance. Current CPU in Air would be considerably faster than this processor is.
 
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