Intel Pushes Portable Handsets and Gadgets

According to Intel Corp. chips makers will be playing an important role in the market as the new generation of portable devices must cope with the challenge of providing end users with improved performance similar to desktop, laptops, and notebooks, but applicable to pocket-size portable devices. As one of the most important chip manufacturers worldwide, Intel will not be going alone in the quest conquering new mobile markets, but many other chip manufacturers are closely following its steps, including Samsung Electronics Co., Nvidia Corp., Texas Instruments Inc., and Qualcomm Inc., just to name a few of the contenders in the chip manufacturing market.

Cell phones are basically the main target when it comes to chip suppliers improving their technologies, but three are also other companies wanting to benefit from this move such as those actually licensing ARM Holdings PLC technology. In fact some chips of the new Intel multiprocessor chips and ARM application processors are designed to improve cell phone performance.

Going ahead on plans, Nokia has introduced the N810 WiMAX Edition, which is a chip-enhanced version of the Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet. Nvidia, however, will continue working on its graphic chips with similar characteristics for both Intel ARM application processors.  Nvidia’s Tegra chip will improve graphic performance on cell phones capable to provide a new visual experience playing games or watching videos. Despite new chips willing to provide the same enhanced performance it is up to chips manufacturers improve their own technology heading for leadership on the market.

As in example the new Intel’s Atom chip can be functionally speaking compared with Nvidia’s Tegra, but their real performance is quite different. Intel’s Atom can only provide four hours of high-definition video with a full battery charge, while Nvidia’s Tegra can provide up to 26 hours of continuous playing.

Mike Rayfield, Nvidia’s General Manager, estimates that Tegra processors will be available by the last quarter of the year and he expects that this new processor allows cell phone manufacturers take advantage ot this technology to put appealing graphic interfaces on top of Windows Mobile. Obviously, handheld devices with Tegra processors will be available at more affordable prices than others with built-in Intel Atom processors.

While Intel estimates that its Atom chip will be the choice for over 30 ultramobile device models, Nvidia is planning two different Tegra series to satisfy the demand with prices averaging anywhere between $250 and 250 for MDIs based on its ARM11 Tegra processor.

Intel senior vice-president Anand Chandrasekher said “It’s not surprising that our competitors would enter the fray. We think the pie will be big enough that there will be plenty for multiple players.”

Even though, this is not a war between Intel and Nvidia, Qualcomm as all the other chip manufacturers are ready for the markets battle developing their own new chips, and some of the acknowledges superior demand over Intel, such as Texas Instruments, which manager claims its new chip has been selected for over 40 devices including both smartphones and MIDs, a mobile category that includes gadgets and devices smaller than a laptop, but larger than a cell phone.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 6:52 am and is filed under Gadget Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.