Brazilian whacks Intel over 'exploding' Atom smartphone chips

Intel is being sued by a Brazilian phone maker that claims Chipzilla's smartphone Atom processors caused handsets to explode. Specifically, Qbex says the Atom SoFIA system-on-chips used in its Android handhelds were defective and prone to overheating that, in some cases, would cause the devices to catch fire or explode. The …

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so that's why they killed Atom.

Intel has never been spectacular at energy savings on mobile when compared to Qualcomm, but I do remember that Atom offered better raw performance on single and multi threaded integer computation, so it was generally better for sustained load.

I also remember being able to buy ITX motherboards with an integrated Atom CPU, and despite being low power Intel still felt the need to slap a heat sink on it, which tells me that they were only "low power" relative to other x86 chipsets, nowhere close to a Qualcomm SOC in terms of energy sipping.

Naturally I'd expect Atom chips to burst into flames without a tall-ish, fanned heatsink, cuz that's how they're normally sold outside of the mobile market.

[david bates]

Re: Ah, so that's why they killed Atom.

To be fair I'm running an Android phone with an Atom chip (an Asus). I was dubious at first but it was a lot of phone for the money, and battery life, heat, performance and pretty much anything else you can think of its comparable in day-to-day use to an ARM phone.

[William 3]

Re: Ah, so that's why they killed Atom.

There is no way you're trying to tell this crowd that Atom is similar to ARM on mobile.

Because we know it's not.

[david bates]

Re: Ah, so that's why they killed Atom.

I've run Nexus 1, then a Nexus 4, and now a Zenfone2. There is nothing about the Zenfone - size, battery life, performance or anything else that would make you think it wasn't just another ARM phone. The only thing about it that might raise eyebrows was the price, which was very good.

The only downside is that it will never get another update.

So, from a user perspective, ARM or Atom is neither here nor there...

[psyq]

Re: Ah, so that's why they killed Atom.

But those CPUs you mentioned embedded on the ITX boards are not the same CPUs as the ones produced for mobile phones. There is a huge difference in TDP, the chips that go into phones have 0.5-2W TDP, while the ones embedded on ITX boards are typically 5-10W.

So you cannot really compare them, it's not apples to apples comparison.

[Tom 64]

Not the first time intel has put head in sand

Reminds me of what they did with the early death bug on the C2000 series.

'Nothing to see here, move along folks, oh and keep buying' was their response.

[Pompous Git]

no evidence to suggest that the overheating issues... were caused by our product

True! The overheating was caused by allowing electricity from the battery to flow through the chip.

[ilmari]

So... We know that Intel CPUs will throttle down at around 100C... So the question is, did the atom CPU fail to throttle and to into thermal runaway, or did the manufacturer fail to keep the battery protected from the 100C CPU?

[jab701]

Mobile CPU would likely throttle far sooner....just because a desktop CPU throttles at 100C doesn't mean the mobile version would reach that.

Also 100C on the die probably wont translate to 100C on the chip package...

Looking at the processor datasheet they are rated for operation in -20c - 85c