Palm PDA roadmap revealed

ALTHOUGH THE TUNGSTEN C has won much critical acclaim, the battle for the PDA throne still rages on. We have received interesting news regarding Palm's roadmap, but the recent acquisition of Treo throws it into some doubt. Nonetheless, the following two models are supposed to be out by November 2003.

-New high end Zire with Intel PXA261 processor running @200Mhz and integrated 32MB Intel StrataFlash memory
-32 bit processor with a 16 bit internal and 32 bit external memory bus -Running Palm OS 6

-New High End Tungsten with Intel PXA263 processor @400 MHz with 64MB integrated Intel StrataFlash
-May have another model with an extra 64MB, total of 128MB
-32 bit processor with a 32 bit internal and external memory bus
-Running Palm OS6

Palm will use XScale chips from now on integrated StrataFlash memory to reduced board area and placement costs. It really makes a lot of sense when you consider that they integrated three components on a PCB into one. Also scalability is achieved because no PCB redesign is needed when changing Intel PXA26x processors. This results in reduced engineering risks, reduced engineering issues between discrete processor and memory (like EMI), and reduced inventory management and associated costs.

A separate account we received indicates that Palm will start using ATI's IMAGEON 3200 chips. The feature set blurb reads:

-High-performance advanced 2D graphics acceleration and MPEG/JPEG decoding
-Highly efficient power management technology for longer battery life
-Exceptional visual quality and display features
-Unique high performance optimized host interface
-Rich set of integrated peripheral IO functions (such as USB OTG and SDIO)
-Integrated frame buffer and LCD controller for space saving µ

See Also
Palm OS 6 to be out in October
Tungsten C reviewed
Handspring delays Smartphone until September