• A Great friend to the HardForum with a great kid that he is trying to get a scholorship to continue his schooling. Please give hime a vote! Only 24 hours left! Thanks.
    If you have an VOTE FOR KEENAN!

Medfield article @ AT

P

pxc

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 22, 2000
Messages
33,063
Nothing is new about the Atom core architecture in Medfield (besides much lower power, especially in standby, on a 32nm LP process), but AT has a pretty good overview of the new single core with HT SoC design. Power consumption is pretty impressive:

Medfield CPU Frequency vs. Power (SoC Power Consumption)
100MHz ~50mW
600MHz ~175mW
1.3GHz ~500mW
1.6GHz ~750mW

Smartphone power consumption (whole phone)
3G standby ~18mW*
talk 3G ~700mW
browsing 3G ~1.0W*
video playback 720p ~850mW
* lower power than iPhone 4S and Galaxy S II

Unfortunately only browser benchmarks and simple graphics test results were shown. The CPU performance is great on web browser benchmarks vs dual core A9. Graphics performance isn't bad, but it's also nothing great (SGX540 @ 400MHz). The test platform is running Gingerbread, but phones with Medfield are expected to run ICS.

OK, Android... how will x86 run ARM apps? Interesting answer:
Intel believes that roughly 75% of all Android apps in the Market don't feature any native ARM code. The remaining 25% are the issue. The presumption is that eventually this will be a non-issue (described above), but what do users of the first x86 Android phones do? Two words: binary translation.

Intel isn't disclosing much about the solution, but by intercepting ARM binaries and translating ARM code to x86 code on the fly during execution Intel is hoping to achieve ~90% app compatibility at launch. Binary translation is typically noticeably slower than running native code, although Intel is unsurprisingly optimistic about the experience on Android. I'm still very skeptical about the overall experience but we'll have to wait and see for ourselves.
Click to expand...
Well, that's a leg up on the MIPS Android devices.
 
im all over this, hoping we have some decent handsets this year when its time for me to upgrade
 
nobody_here said:
im all over this, hoping we have some decent handsets this year when its time for me to upgrade
Click to expand...

By the time phones with this are available it will be competing with cortex a15 parts, so not to exciting I don't think. For Intels first entrance into the smartphone market it is very impressive, I think when they a 22nm SoC out in 2013 that is when it will be exciting.
 
yeah, i know first time around will be abysmal compared to what will follow, but by the time it launches it could get some upgrades like a better GPU, higher clockspeed, etc...
 
Well as long as Intel doesn't pair a low-power processor with a crap 25 watt NB again, it will be good.
 
Last edited:
The lead intel has on manufacturing processes is what will propel them forward if they can get it right as while everyone else will be fiddling with 28nm, they'll be on 22, and then soon on to 14nm. They had that same chance with GPUs, but they fucked that up pretty bad, so we'll see.
 
PowerVR is handling the GPU portion

The GPU
The PowerVR SGX 540 in Medfield is no different from what you'd get in an OMAP 4460, with the exception that it's clocked a bit higher at 400MHz.

The SGX 540 here is a remnant of Intel's earlier strategy to have Medfield out far sooner than it actually is going to show up on the market. Thankfully Intel has plans to introduce a PowerVR SGX 543MP2 based Medfield successor also before the end of the year.
Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones/3

Don't think Intel would be dumb enough to give that another go. Larrabeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
 
After seeing the failure that was the previously Atom-powered smartphone, I really doubt this will do anything against ARM processors.
 
Red Falcon said:
Well as long as Intel doesn't pair a low-power processor with a crap 25 watt NB again, it will be good.
Click to expand...
That's an exaggeration in power, but it was the reason the last sub-1W Atom (Moorestown, very underclocked) went nowhere in handsets. With the NM10 (130nm) chipset and 45nm Moorestown, power around 2.5W max just for the CPU and SB, and that's not counting other required components to interface I/O and power management. It just wasn't competitive in power and performance was weak.

The SoC Medfield is a completely different beast. Made in a new 32nm LP process, and finally a true system on a chip comparable to ARM SoC intergration, it is both power and performance competitve in single threaded applications vs the A9. A single core Medfield with HT likely lags dual core A9. And the GPU in Medfield would have been more impressive > 6 months ago.

There is supposedly going to be the release of a new Atom architecture late this year with upgraded GPU. That should catch up to, or possibly exceed, dual core A9 (quad core A9 will lead, but applications benefitting from it are niche within handhelds). With A15 coming later next year, Intel will probably need to remain competitive with the 22nm Atom shrink.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top