Atom For Small Devices

Intel has announced a new chip to it processor family. This chip will be called Atom, built purposely for small device like Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), affordable Internet-focused notebooks (netbooks), and desktops (nettops).

We can see today the demand for small and cheaper devices mainly use for web browsers, email clients, or simple network media players. This kind of devices don't need powerful processors like Intel's Core 2 or AMD's Phenom processors. These kind of devices need small low energy and low cost but powerful enough to browse and surf the internet. These sort of softwares can easily run on Pentium III processor. With the latest technology we can build a microprocessor that offer the same performance as Pentium III with low power that can run without heatsink and cheap enough for mobile devices.

This new Atom processor is built on Intel's 45nm manufacturing process and will have 47 million transistors. It is Intel's smallest and lowest power of x86 microprocessor with just about 25mm² and powerful enough for full internet capabilities. Atom will has power consumption ranging from subwatt to 2.5 watts with idle power as low as 30mW.

In term of performance, Intel claims that Atom will offer the same performance of the first Pentium M with lower power. A 1.6Ghz Atom will be 20% faster than 800Mhz Pentium M. Comparing Atom to ARM11 processor (built by ARM limited) in web page render times, Atom is about 4 to 6 times faster. This performance is far below today's Intel Core 2 family but you don't need so much power when all you do is browsing internet or play a movie on mobile devices.

You will begin seeing the first devices with Atom processor over the next six months. It is an opportunity to offer more Asus EeePC like devices in future as new generation of Atom will be more powerful and multi-tasking. Right now Intel's Atom will be competing with ARM processor in CE market and I believe sooner or later AMD will enter this market segment and offer more cost effective processors.