紐約時報
SAN FRANCISCO — Intel plans to proclaim Wednesday in Shanghai that the next big thing in consumer gadgets will be the “Internet in your pocket.”
The challenge for the giant chip maker will be to prove that it is not too late to a market that has rapidly become the hottest spot in the consumer electronics business in a post-PC era.
At a developer event in China, the company, based in Santa Clara, Calif., will display a range of wireless Internet devices that Intel believes will fill a gap between smartphones and laptops. The company is hoping to capitalize on the success that Apple has had with its iPhone, which is one of the most popular mobile Web smartphones.
Intel is calling the new computers Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs, and claims that it will have a significant advantage over makers of chips for cellphones because the Intel version will be highly compatible with the company’s laptop and desktop processors for which most Web software is written today.
The first generation of Intel’s MID technology will be aimed at data, not voice communications, leaving the company out of the market for smartphones. That has not damped the enthusiasm of Intel executives who foresee a proliferation of devices ranging from advanced ultracompact laptops to small, tablet-size devices that will be used for browsing the Web, navigation and Internet chat, rather than voice communications.
“What enables the innovation is the ability to bring over all the existing PC applications,” said Anand Chandrasekher, general manager of the company’s Ultra Mobility Group.
The weak link in the Intel strategy is that voice communication remains a significant factor for consumers choosing to buy hand-held devices.
Intel backed out of the cellphone market two years ago when it sold its Xscale microprocessor business to the Marvell Technology Group. Intel then set out on an ambitious redesign project for ultralow-power versions of its PC-oriented X86 chips. The current system requires two chips, one for the processor and one for peripherals. It will take the company another technology generation to place everything on a single chip.
That leads some analysts to believe that the company’s real breakthrough will not come until 2009 or 2010, when a new processor, now code-named Moorestown, arrives.
“We’re pretty bullish on it with some qualifications,” said Van L. Baker, a research vice president at the Gartner Group, a market research firm. “We don’t believe they get there in a significant way until the next generation of technology.”
Meanwhile, Intel’s strategy is moving the company toward a direct confrontation with Qualcomm, the San Diego-based chip maker that is also trying to deliver the wireless Internet on hand-held devices. The company, which refers to its strategy as “pocketable computing,” is offering a competing chip that offers lower power consumption and which is aimed for devices that blend voice and Internet data.
“We need to deliver an Internet experience that is like the desktop,” said Sanjay Jha, Qualcomm’s chief operating officer. “People are used to the Internet, and you can’t shortchange them.”
The new Intel mobile Internet strategy takes advantage of the company’s Atom microprocessor, which was announced in early March. The Atom will have performance roughly equivalent to laptop computers introduced four years ago, but will use little more than a half-a-watt to two-and-a-half watts of battery power. That is significantly lower than the 35 watts of power consumed by the company’s state-of-the-art microprocessors in today’s laptops.
The new MIDs, which are scheduled to begin showing up in consumer electronics outlets in June, are the clearest evidence to date of the effort that Intel has made since its chief executive, Paul Otellini, set the company on a low-power strategy in 2005. In interviews, Intel executives said that the company was slightly ahead of the commitment Mr. Otellini made to bring out a line of lower-power processors before the end of the decade.
Complicating life for Intel is the fact that the chip maker is locked out of the low-power cellphone and smartphone marketplace, which today is entirely based on microprocessor chips made by designs licensed from the British design firm ARM Ltd. to companies like Qualcomm.
More than 10 billion ARM chips have been sold by more than 200 licensees, and ARM now says that more than eight million chips a day are being used in cellphones, smartphones and a wide range of hand-held consumer products.
Until recently, early efforts by the PC industry to create so-called palmtop PCs, such as the Microsoft-inspired Ultra-Mobile PCs, have failed to find a broad consumer audience. Indeed, the entire P.D.A., or personal digital assistant, market is all but dead as many of its functions were overtaken by the smartphone.
However, the category showed renewed signs of life last year when Asus, a Taiwanese equipment maker, made a name for itself by introducing the Eee PC, a two-pound Linux-based laptop that sells for $400.
Now many of the mainstream PC makers are rushing to introduce similar laptops that fall well below the traditional PC laptop price, but allow Web surfing and many basic computing tasks. There is also renewed interest among consumer electronics makers in devices that are neither laptops or cellphones.
Introducing products at the Intel event in Shanghai will be Asus, BenQ, Clarion, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, Lenovo, LG-E, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, WiBrain and Usi. Intel has also distanced itself from its traditionally close relationship with Microsoft and Windows by striking up a new partnership with Ubuntu and Red Flag, two distributors of Linux software for consumer markets.
“Think of it as, ‘honey I shrunk the PC,’ ” said Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering, a consumer electronics market research and consulting firm. “Intel is betting that this will be a win in China, which already has the world’s largest mobile phone market and therefore influences the rest of the world market.”
英特爾開發者論壇（IDF）通常會舉行“第0天”會議，面向新聞媒體“預演”。此次的IDF Spring 2008上，英特爾高級院士、通信技術實驗室總監康凱文（Kevin Kahn）首先以“Redefining Mobility”為題發表了演講。
康凱文就現狀表示：“現在的移動環境受到很多的制約。例如與週邊的連接，介面的尺寸和數量受到制約。畫面尺寸也成為限制因素之一，而未能實現用戶的願望”，未來將“通過與各種產品聯動，可實現無制約地使用網際網路”。
為了實現這一目的，英特爾提出了“Carry Small，Live Large”的設想。Carry Small是指使攜帶產品的尺寸更小，性能更高，並可隨時隨地接入網路，還可通過感測器檢測周圍情況。Live Large是指通過與週邊連接，為用戶提供超越其攜帶產品範疇的使用環境。“例如坐在飛機座位上時，可以利用座椅上的顯示器瀏覽手機簡訊。在家中則使用電 視瀏覽。而不必受制于手機的狹小螢幕”（康凱文）。
康凱文表示，實現這一目標需要的技術包括多個無線通信機構的統合、動態尋覓週邊及安全連接等。在英特爾的實際研究成果方面，介紹了利用手上的 可攜式產品製作圖形畫面，並通過無線將其送至顯示器上顯示的技術。康凱文表示，為了實現這一設想，英特爾需要產業界的協助和實現標準化，並強調了英特爾正 在參與多項標準化工作。（記者：北鄉 達郎）
■日文原文
【IDFプレビュー】「Carry Small，Live Large」ビジョンの実現へ
英特爾在2008年4月2日于中國上海舉行的“2008年英特爾春季開發者論壇（Intel Developer Forum Spring 2008，以下簡稱IDF）”上，公佈了該公司正在開發的低功耗新微處理器“Atom”的詳細資訊。
該公司此前曾于2007年上半年發佈了面向MID（Mobile Internet Device）的“McCaslin（開發代碼）”，但只是對原有CPU內核進行了優化。此次發佈的Atom及其平臺——“Menlow（開發代碼，正式 名稱為‘Centrino Atom’，由於容易與微處理器名Atom混淆，這裡使用開發代碼）”則是面向MID，連同微架構在內為全新開發。
Atom的晶片尺寸為25mm2。封裝尺寸為13mm×14mm×1.6mm，是該公司最小的微處理器。集成了 4700萬個電晶體。耗電量方面，TDP（熱設計功耗）依主頻不同，分別為0.6～2.4W。預計平均可控制在數百mW左右。為了實現低耗電，增加了 “C6”工作狀態。該狀態用於電源管理，CPU內核以及快取全部處於斷電狀態。特別是對於MID等移動產品，英特爾認為，90％以上的時間為C6狀態。
Atom的主頻為800M～1.86GHz，FSB為533M或400MHz，“是耗電量3W以下產品的最快速度”（高級副總裁兼超可攜式事業部總經理Anand Chandrasekher）。配備16級管線，分支目標快取可容納128個入口。
Atom專用晶片組是該公司首次將北橋與南橋統一。內置PCI-Express、USB和SD卡介面以及支援DirectX9的圖形處理器。可解碼1080i以及720p的HD視訊。
該公司在發佈Atom時主要針對的是英國ARM的微處理器。“只要是ARM內核的產品，無論是iPhone還是諾基亞的“N810”，採用個 人電腦新技術的速度都比較慢。如果是x86架構的Atom，則可以與個人電腦同步”（Chandrasekher）。另外，關於網際網路的利用， “（Atom內核的產品）可以順利地瀏覽面向個人電腦的內容。而使用某些配備ARM內核微處理器的產品時，不少網站會因為出現大量錯誤而無法瀏覽” （Anand Chandrasekher）。
性能方面，英特爾展示了Atom與ARM11內核和Cortex-A8內核的比較結果。“1.2GHz主頻和1.6GHz主頻的Atom的性 能分別是600MHz主頻的Cortex-A8和1GHz主頻的Cortex-A8的2倍左右”（Anand Chandrasekher）。性能標準測試使用了EEMBC Suite。Cortex-A8內核的性能是以ARM11內核的實測值為基礎推測得出的。另外，網頁顯示比較的測試結果顯示，與採用ARM11內核的 “OMAP2420”相比，Atom的速度快4.1～6.5倍。TDP也優於ARM內核產品，“性能雖高，但全功率工作的時間短。平均耗電量方面， Atom比較低”（英特爾院士兼超移動事業部首席平臺架構師Shreekant Thakkar）。
使用Atom的Menlow平臺以PND、網路平板電腦、可攜式式視訊播放器的應用為目標。將於2009～2010年面世，新一代平臺 “Moorestown（開發代碼）”還將把可攜式式遊戲機和智慧手機作為對象。英特爾將通過這些平臺，向目前在手機用嵌入微處理器領域處於優勢地位的 ARM發起全面挑戰。（記者：北鄉 達郎）
■日文原文
【訂正あり‧画像追加】【IDF】Intel社，組み込み用途を狙う新マイクロプロセサAtomの性能などを公開，ARM対抗を露わに
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