The market for processors used in portable devices like tablets and netbooks is large and getting larger by the day. Intel said it’s shipped 70 million of its Atom processors for netbooks, a market it dominates, since Atoms were launched in 2008.
New low-power, dual-core processors are certain to increase the performance of low-cost but sluggish netbooks and tablets, especially those that use Windows 7.
As tablets and netbooks become closer in form and function, some tablets will use Atom or AMD’s low-power Fusion chips. Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer points to the launch of an Atom-like processor in 2011 called Oak Trail that will allow Windows 7 to run more efficiently on tablets than it does on existing Atoms.
Intel and AMD have their eyes on the tablet market because of its sudden growth. Market research firms such as Forrester expect tablets to outsell netbooks by 2014. It said that by 2015, tablets will account for 23% of all PCs in units sold. It predicts tablet sales will increase from 3.5 million units this year to more than 20 million units in 2015, enough to prompt it to add tablets as a fourth PC category along with desktops, netbooks and notebooks.
Intel and AMD this week each said they are, or will shortly be, shipping low-power, dual-core processors for netbooks. Their new chips will also compete against those based on ARM designs, which are made by a number of companies such as Qualcomm (Snapdragon chips), Samsung and Texas Instruments.
Intel rival AMD wants a piece of the market for netbooks, tablets and Internet TV STBs so it’s developing a new generation of low-cost, low-power processors called Fusion that integrate the CPU and a graphics processor unit (GPU) into a single chip. AMD has two new core designs: a) Bobcat, for low-power notebooks, tablets and small desktop PCs and b) Bulldozer, for high-performance desktop PCs and servers. The new Bobcat-based chips will also compete against those that are based on ARM designs.
This week AMD spokesman Gary Silcott said portable devices with Fusion hybrid chips will begin shipping “early next year.” He did not name the companies, which generally prefer to make their own product announcements.
AMD expects to begin shipping Fusion chips in this year’s fourth quarter. It said the technology could be extended to chips for use in TV sets and smartphones but is currently concentrating on netbooks and notebooks.
A new Apple TV has been mentioned as possibly using the Fusion chips, but, if so, that would eliminate the possibility that new Apple TV units would begin shipping in September.
Dina McKinney, AMD’s VP of design engineering, said the CPUs in Fusion chips will have almost 90% of the performance of the AMD processors in PCs, but use only half the space. They can run on less than one watt of power.
The first Fusions, code-named Ontario, will include two processor cores and a DirectX-11 capable GPU. The GPU is expected to enable video up to 1080p video.
Dell, already in the tablet and netbook market, has said it’s evaluating AMD’s Fusion chips for use in netbooks. Apple, which dominates the tablet market, uses Samsung-made chips that are Apple’s own ARM-based designs.
Microsoft and IBM this week announced a new system-on-a-chip (SOC) for use in Xbox 360s that integrates the CPU and GPU on the same chip like the new processors from Intel and AMD.
Intel currently dominates the netbook market with its Atom processors that also bundle in a GPU. AMD said it has gone the next step by integrating the CPU and GPU. It calls its Fusion chips “APUs” (for Accelerated Processing Units) instead of CPUs.
Intel said this week it’ll start shipping Atom N550 dual-core versions of its Atom processor for netbooks (and probably tablets). It said they’ll get “similar” battery duration to the current Atom 450 processors. Both are the same size.
Intel said the Atom N550 is adept at processing digital media, especially Adobe Flash, used by many Web sites such as YouTube and Hulu. The N550 and N450 use the same graphics chipset, which has the ability to handle 720p high-definition video.
Erik Reid, Intel’s director of marketing for mobile platforms, said Acer, ASUS, Fujitsu, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, MSI, and Toshiba have committed to producing products that use the new processors.