moorestown

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said today that its chips will be in more than 35 different tablet designs in 2011, while clarifying that two lines of Atom processors will be used in tablets.

"We're going to make sure we support all of the viable operating systems that are in the marketplace," Otellini said at the Barclays Capital 2010 Global Technology Conference. The conference audio was streamed live over the Internet.

Intel listed more than 15 brands, including upcoming consumer tablets from Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, and Motion Computing. "A number of them on Windows. A … Read more

Intel on Tuesday announced its long-awaited Atom chip for smartphones and tablets, a crowded market populated by a host of formidable rivals--unlike the PC market where it dominates.

Previously known by the code name "Moorestown," the Atom Z6 processor series will "open the door" for Intel chips in the smartphone market, said Pankaj Kedia, director in the Ultra Mobility Group. To date, Intel's Atom has been used primarily in Netbooks, where it has been adopted widely by all major PC makers and been an unqualified hit.

"The specific focus of Moorestown is entering the smartphone segment but it also does very well, it scales very well in the tablet segment," Kedia said. The entire package of chips is composed of the Atom Z6 series system-on-a-chip and two accompanying pieces of silicon. The system-on-a-chip is the "brains of the smartphone" and does all of the heavy lifting such as the core data processing, the handling of video and audio streams, and graphics, Kedia said.

"This time the Atom architecture was defined so it could (fit) into the high end of the smartphone segment," said Belliappa Kuttanna, chief Atom Architect.

Compared with Intel's relatively power-hungry PC processors, Moorestown's most distinctive characteristic is its power frugality. Standby time using a "BlackBerry-style" battery is 10 days. Active battery time, when Web browsing or watching video, for example, is about five hours, said Kedia, who claimed battery life is competitive with high-end "premium" smartphones. (Though Kedia didn't mention any by name, premium smartphones include Apple's iPhone and Motorola's Droid.)

But Intel's hallmark feature is performance. "When you look at Web page type of performance. For example, Java-script-rich Web sites. Specifically, how fast the Web pages load.… Read more

Intel on Wednesday in Beijing is debuting an Atom processor designed for home tablets and announcing a partnership with China Mobile.

Speaking at the Intel Developer Forum 2010 Beijing, Doug Davis, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel's embedded and communications group, disclosed a future Atom processor code-named "Tunnel Creek" that is targeted at home-use tablets and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

Intel describes always-on tablet devices for the home as "media phones," which can serve as a digital photo frame, MP3 player, a standard Web browsing device, a home command center, and, of course, a phone. (OpenPeak bases its tablet design on Intel's Atom processor.)

Tunnel Creek is based on Intel's Moorestown system-on-a-chip Atom design and combines an Atom core, the memory controller, graphics engine, and video engine. The chip is designed to work with a variety of devices that don't necessarily use accompanying Intel silicon, called chipsets.

The new Atom chip also features enhanced graphics capabilities. So, for example, with in-vehicle infotainment systems, the front seat display could have 3D mapping while the back seat simultaneously displays improved gaming graphics, according to Intel.

On a separate front, Intel Chief Technology Officer Intel Labs Director Justin Rattner showed a concept device for managing energy consumption powered by an Atom processor. The demonstration showed how a homeowner could use the intelligent electronic dashboard to provide ongoing information and suggestions on energy use, thereby reducing power costs.

Partnerships with China Mobile and HawTai Automobile Intel also announced… Read more

AT&T is already expanding its selection of products in the nascent tablet market. In addition to the upcoming Apple iPad, AT&T will market a tablet based on a future version of Intel's Atom processor.

At the CTIA trade show in Las Vegas this week, AT&T announced a tablet that will run, like the iPad, on its 3G broadband network. The tablet is based on a design from Boca Raton, Fla.-based OpenPeak, which designs and develops products for companies like Verizon and Telefonica--two of its current customers.

Inside OpenPeak's "OpenTablet" … Read more

How important is the ability to multitask on tablet-class devices like Apple's iPad? Important enough that the feature will likely be touted as a trump card for Intel-based smartphones such as a tablet-size phone from LG due later this year.

How do we know this? Watch the embedded CNET video below, which I took at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, and find out. Toward the end of the video (the 2:55 mark), Pankaj Kedia, director of Intel's Global Ecosystems Program for Mobile Internet Devices and Smart Phones, makes it clear that multitasking--in this case using … Read more

Technology from Intel, Marvell, and Nvidia is powering some intriguing alternatives to the imminent Apple tablet.

News about the Apple tablet, when it emerges, will likely blanket the Internet for some time after the device is announced, obscuring tablet efforts from rivals. Nevertheless, there will be at least a few designs that should warrant some attention. Here are some potential high-profile alternatives:

Intel and OpenPeak The world's largest chipmaker (which, let's not forget, supplies millions of laptop and desktop processors to Apple every year) will, of course, not be a bystander in tablet competition. And one of its strongest contenders for this market is a future Atom chip codenamed "Moorestown."

In a recent interview at the Consumer Electronics Show, Pankaj Kedia, director of Intel's Global Ecosystems Program for Mobile Internet Devices and Smart Phones, said that the Moorestown "system-on-a-chip" processor will ship in the first half of this year. And during a CES keynote, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini brandished a tablet using Moorestown from a company called OpenPeak.

On Thursday, I posed some questions to Dan Gittleman, chief executive of OpenPeak, and Brian Woods, the company's chief marketing officer.

OpenPeak designs and develops products for companies like Verizon and Telefonica--two of its current customers. I asked Gittleman to describe how the tablet demonstrated at CES would be used. "We don't expect it to be a full PC replacement but rather a much more convenient platform for accessing a lot of services that you currently get on a PC: news, Facebook, weather, streaming music, casual games, etc.," he said in response to an e-mail query.

The tablet could also be "the ultimate control panel. A great security panel, baby/house monitor, home energy monitor," Gittleman said. Woods added that announcements of devices will happen "over the course of the next several months" and in the second half of the year.

Chip supplier Marvell Marvell recently showed me a few tablet/e-reader devices that are powered by its Armada processors and other Marvell silicon such as its Wi-Fi chips. Allen Leibovitch, senior marketing manager for Marvell's application processor business, demonstrated… Read more

LAS VEGAS--An Intel executive gave a surprisingly in-depth demonstration of a future LG GW990 smartphone from LG Electronics here at CES.

Pankaj Kedia, director of Intel's Global Ecosystems Program for Mobile Internet Devices and Smart Phones, walked me through the phone's interface (see above video) on Friday. It runs on Intel's Moblin operating system and was surprisingly functional for a phone that is due, most likely, in the second half of the year. Intel CEO Paul Otellini brandished the LG GW990 during a CES keynote on Thursday but he demonstrated nothing approaching what Kedia showed me.

To … Read more

As Intel readies its most potent chip yet for small devices, Apple may already be using competing technology.

One of the themes of the upcoming Intel Developer Forum (starting Tuesday) will be the chip giant's foray into the smartphone and mobile Internet device (MID) markets. Intel's current Atom chip is fine for Netbooks but has had little impact on MIDs and zero impact on smartphones, where it is simply too power hungry to be usable.

Enter Moorestown. A much more power efficient Atom chip, due by 2010, that should find its way into high-end LG smartphones, MIDs from … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Much more than most companies, Intel's success depends on the technology that will arrive in its field years hence. As a result, the company has more than 1,000 researchers beavering away to gauge and develop that technology.

And the company wants everyone to know it.

At its Intel Research Day at the Computer History Museum here Thursday, the company touted a wide range of projects that extend beyond the company's core business of making computer processors. On display were projects to improve the WiMax regional wireless network technology, improve mobile devices' processing power while … Read more