Intel admits: Broadwell Core M chip looking a bit thin, no fans found at all

Intel disclosed on Monday technical details of its new microarchitecture for chips baked using its latest 14-nanometer process, known by the codename "Broadwell." "This new microarchitecture is more than a remarkable technical achievement," Intel VP and general manager of product development Rani Borkar said in a canned …

[Paul Shirley]

"devices with batteries that are half the size but deliver double the run times"

My tablet is telling me it burnt 77% of it's battery on the screen. Presumably Intel tablets don't have backlit screens or perhaps they don't have screens at all!

Then I remembered: my tab has an ARM CPU, not a power gobbling Intel room heater and Intel is still playing catchup ;)

[Tom Chiverton 1]

Re: "devices with batteries that are half the size but deliver double the run times"

Aye; although Intel is worse than AMD, we're still screwed till someone sorts out display technology.

And I'd still rather have a same-sized but four times longer lasting battery, thanks, much like how I don't need yet another thin phone which barely lasts a day.

[P. Lee]

Re: "devices with batteries that are half the size but deliver double the run times"

> my tab has an ARM CPU, not a power gobbling Intel room heater

For all the bluster I suspect Intel is is actually aiming at preserving its laptop dominance. Its issue will be that larger ARMs might move into the transformer/laptop space and it needs to get its power consumption tech down before ARM gets its performance up. All devices need screens, so it really doesn't matter to Intel if screens burn most of the battery, just as long as ARM doesn't gain competitive advantage.

If you have a work laptop which doubles as a tablet, are you going to buy your own ARM tablet? Intel need to cut the funding to ARM to strangle its development. I suspect that's a hopeless task. Vendors (samsung, apple, hp) like ARM for ownership (vertical integration) and Intel's prices will never be lower than ARM's unless they cut out the profit margin. Intel will have to be significantly better than ARM, not just match it, to win. Intel's problem is that ARM is good enough, being better delivers unneeded benefits, except perhaps in battery life which, as you point out, is almost moot.

Intel's best hope is to get full-fat windows running well on tablet specs. They'll need to convert the laptop market to a tablet market (BYO keyboard/mouse). I'm not sure they'll want to do that. Even if they do manage it, they still have phones to deal with and the vertically integrated Apple and Samsung who are quite happy to do their own h/w development and HP which (hopefully) will be happy to put some work in on the server side. They've also got to deal with the consumer router market which also has CMOT Dibbler margins and appears to be sprouting NAS capabilities at the top end. About time too!

[Charlie Clark]

2010 called

Why all the comparison with 2010? Is the competition from then? Didn't think so. A little less copy&paste from the press release and a little more reading between the lines, please.

[Tromos]

Just the job for a media centre

No CPU fan and as the power requirements are low, a laptop type brick power supply will do nicely, again with no fan and then throw in an SSD to complete the no moving parts silent line-up.

[Shane McCarrick]

Re: Just the job for a media centre

We've had loads of media centre type devices with the power profile you're describing- I know I had a Revo at least 5 years ago, and my current one is an Arctic unit- also fanless.......

Intel's achilles heel for anyone who actually has a clue about hardware, has been their lackluster graphics performance.

A little objective reporting on how the 14nm architecture has improved graphics performance- would be very welcome..........

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just the job for a media centre

"Intel's achilles heel for anyone who actually has a clue about hardware, has been their lackluster graphics performance."

That's why people been happily slapping a Nvidia or AMD graphics card on their media centres, with passive, even water cooling, as you probably know yourself.

And we are coming full circle to the days where computers had only passive cooling heatsinks, a la 486.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Just the job for a media centre

As detailed in a recent article in C'T (German computer magazine) a Raspberry Pi is pretty much all you need for one of those. Hardware acceleration for the codecs is the most important thing. Intel's chips are great for compiling and quite a lot of real work, media centres are just glorified file servers.

[Tom_]

Re: Just the job for a media centre

Yeah, raspbmc seems to work pretty well for me. Small device, silent, copes with all the media I've tried to use it for so far. Damn it, it even works with my regular TV remote control, which I found kind of astonishing when I first realised.

[William Gallafent]

Thickness

The current MacBook Pro 15" (for example) is 18mm thick and contains a Core i7. That does not square with “devices built using previous generations of Core chips had to be 26mm thick or more”. Or have I missed something?

[Steve Todd]

Re: Thickness

Or there's the MacBook Air, which tapers from 17mm to 11mm thick.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Tablet thin-ness

I don't really want my tablet or phone to get any thinner. My hand wants to hold a device with a feeling of solidity, not something that may break or bend to easily.

If they have the ability, I do want my tablet or phone to last the better part of a week before needing a recharge. If their system runs on 1/4 of the power that the previous generation did, then I'll take the increase between recharges rather than shrinking my tool...

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Here's an idea

Here's an idea: Intel should just buy an ARM license and build those using its "new process." Linux runs great on ARM, and Linux is what matters for mobile devices. Trying to run any form of Windows on a tablet or phone is really just a clunky backport that nobody's really asking for.

[Mage]

Re: Here's an idea

I think Intel has a full ARM licence.

I think they even have an ARM based comms SoC someplace. They only sold MOST of their ARM (from DEC originally) to Marvell.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Here's an idea

"I think they even have an ARM based comms SoC someplace"

Might that be the IXP422/425? I used a neat little box based on that a few years back.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't call WP8 clunky, it's very slick

[Mage]

You mean sick. The l key is beside k, probably a finger slipped.

[david 12]

Ouch - bitten by the headline writter

1 point to you, Sir/Madam

[Glen Turner 666]

@IGnatius T Foobar -- ARM

Sure, Intel could have used ARM. But it would have been stupid to do so.

Firstly there are no ARM designs for 14nm. So it would have to license and then develop a design. So it is already costing Intel more than using its own x86 architecture, for which it need not pay licensing fees. Intel *would* have to license: using the historically-licensed design isn't going to cut it as Intel would want the ARMv8 64b design. It does not make financial sense to develop a 32b design with its 2GB memory restriction -- that simply won't have the sales lifetime for the investment required.

Secondly, the market would expect those ARM designs to retail for less than what they would get for the equivalent x86 design.

Thirdly, ARM sales have less lock-in than with x86. If a fab overcommits capacity then a customer can run off some cheap ARM and threaten your business plan. That doesn't happen with x86.

Fourthly, a lot of the work making ARM work on 14nm benefits later arrivals to the 14nm process who then can license that work from ARM Ltd rather than pay development costs. Why would Intel, the first with a 14nm process, ease the way for its rivals?

The statement that "Linux runs fine on ARM" is irrelevant. Linux runs fine on x86 too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @IGnatius T Foobar -- ARM

"it is already costing Intel more than using its own x86 architecture, for which it need not pay licensing fees"

Somewhat arguable, unless Intel aren't paying anything for people and equipment being used to develop x86. What Intel might lose in licence fees they could in principle gain in reduced engineering development costs. An ARM licensee has already developed the architecture/design, 'all' Intel have to do is the manufacturing, and they have decades of demonstrated competence at that. Intel's competence in general design engineering skills in are demonstrated by their decades of success outside their x86 comfort zone (or not).

"The statement that "Linux runs fine on ARM" is irrelevant. Linux runs fine on x86 too."

Its relevance depends on where you look. Look around a commercial datacentre and you'd be right. Look around a typical home and there are multiple Linux systems, almost always invisible, almost never x86, almost always ARM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re. screens

There was an article about using phase sequenced colour backlight, with RGB OLED panels for backlighting and a faster LCD material to achieve >50fps at three times normal resolution.

The really neat part is that as no colour filters are used a lot more (70%) of the light exits the panel and the viewing angle is nearly the same as OLED while power consumption is also reduced.