Intel's new phone chip unveiled at CES is very fast
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Jan. 15, 2012
Unveiled at CES 2012, Intel's newest processor for mobile phones is surprising in many respects, yet its biggest
surprise is its overall speed, but at an affordable cost.
The Medfield Atom Z-2460 chip for smartphones beats some of the fastest phones on the market. Is this fast enough to
be smartphone-market disruptive? Will battery life measure up? Only Lenovo and Motorola know for sure.
One thing is for certain, though-- neither of those companies are signing up for Medfield out of pity. Another surprise
is that the specs are not that different from a bar-graph slide that CEO Paul Otellini showed at a Credit Suisse Annual
Technology Conference back in November.
If those results hold up for the upcoming Lenovo K800 smartphone and Motorola's unannounced phones, Intel-based phones
should offer stalwarts like the iPhone 4S and Samsung's Galaxy Nexus some real competition for their money.
"Although running what appears to be a stock Gingerbread browser, Intel's Medfield reference platform posts SunSpider
performance better than any other smartphone we've tested, including the Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich," said
Anandtech.
Though Intel didn't mention what the shipping smartphones were in his slide presented in November, we now know two
of those phones were the iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
And these surprising benchmarks don't stop there. The Medfield reference platform delivers tablet-like scores on the
BrowserMark benchmark, beating the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and iPhone 4S.
And this is all done with just one CPU core, which will help save bettery life to boot. It also means that Lenovo and
Motorola are not adopting Intel's smartphone chip platform on a whim either. Close analysis of those benchmarks also
demonstrates that Intel is offering a real competitive advantage for the wireless industry.
So Intel's new Atom Z-2460 CPU appears to deliver better processor performance than anything yet on the market,
despite only having a single core. GPU (graphics processing unit) performance is still not as fast as what's in the A5,
but it's competitive with much of the industry today, and the dual-core version of Medfield could rectify that problem."
That dual-core version is called Clover Trail. At least, that's the version for Windows 8 and Ice Cream Sandwich tablets
that Intel was demonstrating at CES. In addition to adding a core, it will also have an upgraded GPU.
Will that be competitive with Apple's A6? Or Texas Instruments' OMAP5? Nobody knows for now.
And there's another surprise that Intel is holding close to its vest right now-- "Silvermont."
That chip will be a completely redesigned Atom that will debut on 22-nanometer manufacturing process technology. The chip promises mainstream
laptop-like performance for smartphones.
It's probably safe to say that Intel will be a major force to deal with in the smartphone and tablet markets in the
years to come, and the Atom Z-2460 family of chips hold a lot of promise, according to the people we spoke to at CES.
It will be interesting to see how fast the rest of the chip manufacturing industry responds to Intel and what could
be some alternatives to the Z-2460. We will keep you posted.
Source: Intel Corp.
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