Qualcomm chip poses a threat to Intel

THERE’S A NEW CHIP on the block and Qualcomm’s tiny low-power circuit board with high-definition video capability is not good news for Intel.

Snapdragon is mobile phone chipmaker Qualcomm’s latest foray into tiny low-powered chips for smart phones and MIDs, a market rapidly becoming the target of all major industry players. Using less than half the power of Intel’s Atom, the Snapdragon will apparently be cheaper, too.

Power Consumption wasn’t exactly an Intel priority until just a few short years ago, by which time all other major chip makers were already creating clouds of dust for the chip giant to cough and splutter in. Using a chip design from little British chippie, ARM, firms like Qualcomm, Nvidia, Marvell and Texas Instruments have managed to slash power consumption to a level more akin to the cellphone than PCs.

In fact, so numerous are the mobile phones with ARM chips bunged into them, that it wouldn’t even be wildly inaccurate to say that just as most PCs in the world are “Intel Inside”, most of the world’s mobile phones are “ARM inside”. And not just cell phones either. If it’s very small and electronic (think handheld GPS, portable game systems, etc), chances are it could well be using an ARM chip. Not great tidings for Chipzilla’s X86.

As the trend for baby laptops (netbooks) increases, the battle will only heat up. Anxious to prove it isn’t being left behind, Intel boasts that at least 30 netbook models will sport its diminutive Atom chip, ten times less power guzzling than its X86 chip, and the firm claims to be investing heavily in low-power microprocessor research.

Chipzilla also believes its saving grace could be the level of Web experience provided by its chips and the fact its chips are more or less standardised, making life easier for designers, whereas ARM’s are not.

But when it comes to claiming a higher level of Web experience, Intel could be being a little hasty. Fruity toy maker Apple, for instance, opted for an ARM chip in its new Iphone recently, dealing a painful blow to Intel.

Only time will tell whether ARM really will manage to muscle its way into Intel’s plans to conquer the MID market. Still, it’s a safe bet to say that the low powered chip ‘arms race’, is only just getting underway. µ

L’Inq
New York Times

See Also
Arm muscles its way into Intel's server market