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Sep 01

IBM and Intel Getting a Makeover for Mobile

Posted in: Apple, intel, ipad, iPhone, ipod, mobile, Phones, power, R&D and Inventions, RIM, Today's Chili

IBM/Apple PowerPC 750 350MHz G3 by David Lieberman/Flickr. Used gratefully under a Creative Commons license.

Apple ditched IBM’s PowerPC for Intel because the chip didn’t have a low-power roadmap for laptops. Then it passed up Intel in favor ARM on its iOS devices for similar reasons. So it’s no surprise that IBM and Intel are pumping up their R&D and acquisition efforts to get back in the game with tiny, low-power, low-heat speed demons for tomorrow’s mobile devices.

At a research conference last week, IBM engineer Michael Floyd presented a new deep-sleep mode, codenamed “Winkle” (after Rip Van). Along with a “nap” mode where the processor uses a fraction of full power but can return to full power quickly, “deep-sleep” reduces power to near-zero, but takes longer to wake up. It’s kind of like the “Hibernate” mode in Windows XP, but at the processor/controller level.

Floyd gave no specific indication of when IBM would actually be rolling out Winkle. It may be introduced for the company’s current line of Power 7 chips, but the Power 8, which doesn’t yet have a release schedule, could be more likely.

Intel, on the other hand, isn’t waiting. Instead of (or maybe in addition to) pushing its new Moorestown line of Atom processors for mobile phones, they’re buying the wireless-chip division of Germany’s Infineon Technologies AG for $1.4 billion, in a deal that should close in Q1 2011.

As R&D Magazine reports, buying Infineon would make Intel the fifth-biggest supplier of mobile-phone processors in a list topped by Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and STMicroelectronics.

It’s not a huge slice of the market, but it’s a solid foothold. Infineon’s most visible customer? Apple, who uses their chips for 3G. And now Intel/Infineon will be inside RIM, Samsung, and Nokia mobile devices too.

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