Intel is finally revealing details for its impending Atom successor launch, named Silvermont. Wonder whether Motorola+Google have some interesting things lined up using these parts. And then of course there’s Microsoft that needs high performing, but low cost Win 8\Blue devices.
Either way, things look really promising both on the power and performance front, which can only mean good things for the mobile industry as a whole:
The mobile market is far more competitive than the PC industry was back when Conroe hit. There isn’t just one AMD but many competitors in the SoC space that are already very lean and fast moving. There’s also the fact that Intel doesn’t have tremendous marketshare in ultra mobile. Silvermont may feel a lot like Conroe, but the market it’s competing in is very different. That’s not to say that Intel can’t be successful here; it’s just not going to be easy.
Architecturally Silvermont is very conservative, and that’s not a bad thing. A side effect of not wanting to make Haswell irrelevant by a far lower cost part is the benefit of maintaining power efficiency. Intel joins the ranks of Apple and Qualcomm in intelligently scaling performance while respecting power consumption. Intel’s 22nm process should give Silvermont a lot of runway to use. If it can quickly follow up with 14nm, Silvermont’s power advantage could end up being akin to Conroe’s performance advantage in the mid-2000s.
via AnandTech | Intel’s Silvermont Architecture Revealed: Getting Serious About Mobile.
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