Recently in Semiconductors Category

The news surrounding Intel's recent announcement of the Atom Z6xx (aka Moorestown) System-on-a-Chip (SoC) tends to focus on the uphill battle the company is facing in the ARM-centric smartphone ecosystem. Intel has claimed idle times of 21-23 milliwatts for the Z6xx series compared to 25 mW for a 1GHz Snapdragon. That is 10 days of standby time with a 1500 mAh battery. What is more interesting is the move to port Windows Server to multi-core ARM processors manufactured at 40 nm, such as announced by Marvell Technology Group. The chips will bring more than a five-fold reduction in power consumption in data centers and cloud environments compared to the x86. Think of the headroom an ARM implementation in servers would be when comparing an Intel Xeon at several hundred dollars versus a $35 ARM quad-core running virtualized Windows Server 2008. Om Malik brings up in a recent post that it was "too bad Intel sold its StrongARM technology to Marvell." I agree; Marvell did what Intel didn't have the heart to do. We think of virtualization in data centers as smart economics in hardware utilization and power consumption but what happens when server hardware processor cores decrease by a factor of 10 and power consumption by 5? Do we throw hardware at the problem again? Analysts should model the financial scenarios factoring in VMWare licensing costs, power consumption/footprint of rack space and application-specific-servers vs. general purpose power-hog blades running VMWare.

The Cortex A4 Core that is. I was interested to see the first production use of technology from Apple's acquisition of PA Semiconductor. While most analysts believe Apple should have used off-the-shelf ARM CPU silicon from Qualcomm or Freescale, I believe the benefits of controlling your own hardware outweigh the potential cost saving curve over the long run. Here's why. First, chip design today is very modular and you can choose ready-to-integrate LSI gate arrays in a mix and match fashion. Second, given the size criteria, Apple chose an optimal layout by only putting the necessary logic it needs on-board the A4 rather than taking an entire system-on-a-chip (SOC) from a commodity supplier. Third, they have more control over system enhancements and fixes by being able to flash hardware without waiting on chip manufacturer release cycles. And lastly, they get to keep the intellectual property created by engineering the highest performance per cubic-millimeter and lowest power per dollar and not allowing that learning to accrue to the commercial silicon provider - where it could find itself in non-Apple devices. Just getting the In-Plane-Switching (IPS) display to work right without the power budget hit was amazing. IPS requires two transistors per pixel instead of one, which usually requires more backlight (and hence more power).  Somehow Apple got around that. Who's to say they couldn't get Intel to manufacturer the chip for them?

As an avid follower of developments in semiconductors, I've been especially impressed lately with Qualcomm. Not only does the new Snapdragon processor power the Google Nexus One, but the company recently began promoting their own brand like an Intel or even like a consumer display company such as LG. They showed off their interferometric modulation (IMOD) technology for color e-readers at CES this year. IMOD uses MEMS technology in a biomimetics application. This means it simulates behavior found in nature - like the way butterfly wings shimmer with reflective light. While the Mirasol was not a product per se, it was a proof of concept, a reference design to show manufacturers what is possible. Qualcomm's new dual-core 8X72 chip Smartphone processor will be capable of rendering 1080p HD, so be on the lookout for more HD video and 3D packed into the next generation handsets too! 

According to Flurry Media, Droid accounted for 48% of the download volume during the month of December. Motorola and Verizon executed on a $100 million marketing campaign resulting in Motorola over-achieving on their previous forecast of 600,000 units in the 4^th quarter. The device received good reviews in late October setting the stage for a big 4^th quarter push. Even though the music and video capabilities are lacking, the faster web browser and call quality make it the star in Android handsets. Motorola fully embraced Android and made some good design choices; including using the more powerful Arm Cortex A8 CPU. The same CPU in the iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre. The upcoming Google Nexus will be another HTC variant sporting better performance on web pages due to some tuning with Android 2.1 and the Snapdragon processor. Now we have to determine who is the better high-volume manufacturer, Motorola or HTC? Since HTC gains the benefit of multiple OEM relationships, they come down the learning cost curve much faster than a stand-alone Motorola. I would see the Nexus One come out with an initial high price, then rapidly decline during the Spring of 2010.

In 2009, Google made great strides with Android with key cell phone makers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung and high-volume Asian OEMs and ODMs. Because the OS only supports a limited number of processors and does not support the native C language, tool makers such as Mentor Graphics have begun to port Android to a variety of chip sets in an effort to overcome these limitations. This opens up a larger market beyond smartphones. Contract manufacturers supporting ARM or MIPS processor designs have a tremendous opportunity if Android penetrates consumer electronics. If this happens,  we could see Google Android powered large-screen TVs, Set-tops, GPS handhelds, automotive gadgets and MP3 players. Japan's Open Embedded Software Foundation already has 50 participating companies. If you know anything about "embedded" devices you know that market is several orders of magnitude larger the computer and communication device market.

Three-axis microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-based gyroscopes such as this one from Invensense are one step beyond the accelerometers found today in the iPhone, the PS3 and Wii. By invoking the Coriolis effect to track angular momentum, they have real-time awareness of their 3D orientation thereby allowing extremely accurate detection of human gestures. Next year I expect to see them added to GPS navigation systems for "dead reckoning" when a signal is lost indoors. Innovation in other mobile 3D chipsets, gaming accessories and software will drive usage in Remotes and useful in-air mice devices. With these small chips in wristbands, we could point like Sylar in Heroes to change HD channels or handwrite Tweets over the air.

Warren East, CEO of ARM Holdings says there will be over 10 ARM-based Netbooks on the market by year end. That puts a lot of pressure on Microsoft to port Windows to the ARM processor, or does it? Here's the dilemma. If Microsoft ports to the ARM, Intel could optimize x86 CPUs like Atom for Linux (and Android). Even though Microsoft has embedded versions of Windows for kiosks & cash registers, it's not clear to me the ARM processor could handle a scaled down version of Windows. Not to mention how it would perform against a lightweight Linux ARM implementation. Intel wins either way. Apple's not playing this game; they've segmented the processor platform of the Intel MacBooks from the iPhone. They will most likely develop their own MPU/GPU combo chip as I've discussed here before. Microsoft should stay the course and stick with Intel. 

The ingredient digital ink for Kindle, E Ink, is working with Plastic Logic to develop a reading tablet to display books, newspapers and magazines. Many content owners in the industry view Amazon's middle-man role as unfavorable in that they set the pricing and the layout of content for the Kindle. Since the early 2000's, firms producing the reflective layers of the nanostructured films of titanium dioxide that create the solid white background have come down the learning curve. This process improves reflectivity and contrast while eliminating the need for backlighting. Innovations in bistable voltage have optimized power management. Newer displays, for example, can operate on very low voltage that only charges when the image is updating. Amazon commercialized this type of technology in high volume with the Kindle. Publishers complain that the Kindle doesn't allow for advertising and it is a poor substitute for the feel of pages - they would. Warren Buffet said recently he would not buy any Newspaper publishing company "at any price" because of the business model erosion. I see potential consumer confusion with the proliferation of these devices, especially if the industry takes different directions from Amazon, Apple, Sony, Gannett, NY Times and other publishers struggling to re-invent themselves. 

Dell introduced the new Dell Precision workstations based on the Xeon product line from Intel today. As the master of PC industry road-map, Intel tells IBM, Dell, HP and other PC manufacturers what they are building next and when. These processors also power the new Mac Pro and Apple has a nice summary of the architecture on their site. Nehalem (Xeon 3500/5500) utilizes the 45nm process and features the latest micro-architecture. The next stop will be the shrink of the die called "Westmere" in a 32nm process. Intel has a well thought out roadmap - shrink, then innovate, then shrink again (Tick/Tock). This gives OEMs a good runway for product planning and price/performance curve forecasting. Now with Cisco's entry into the datacenter space, they will also be a key stakeholder in the future generations. Much has been said about virtualization enhancements with this architecture but the real key is on-chip memory control. Improved memory management is the key to supporting more VM instances on the bare metal. We'll see the rest of the industry show their hands on Monday.