NetbookTech

News.com reports that Intel is planning to accelerate the development of the Intel Atom processor. According to Sean Maloney, Intel executive vice president, the Atom processor will be updated more frequently – following a strategy similar to the “tick-tock” methodology used for Intel’s Core processor lineup.

Not familiar with “tick-tock” advancement process? It works like this. One year (tick cycle) Intel delivers a new manufacturing process for the current processor architecture. The following year (tock cycle), the company introduces new processor micro-architecture.

So why the acceleration?

Intel’s always walked a fine line with the Atom processor. The chip’s superb energy efficiency and good enough performance catapulted the processor to a dominant market share of the explosive netbook market. Yet the very same netbook market has proven to be a double-edged sword for Intel. Higher sales of netbook systems have resulted in lower sales for the rest of the mobile computing market – translating to lower demand for Intel’s higher gross margin mobile processors as more lower-margin Atom processors are sold. Not a good thing for Intel. 

As a result, Intel tried to downplay the Atom processor – making sure to relegate and market the processor as just powerful enough for “basic computing” and small mobile devices like smartphones, MIDs, etc. In addition, the company has been reticent to introduce advancements to the processor line. In the last two years, we’ve seen only a dual core desktop version and a bump up in speed with the Atom N280 processor (from 1.6GHz to 1.66GHz – yawn).

In the meantime, recognizing that consumer interest in mobile systems has shifted to inexpensive thin and light systems, Intel saw a need to accelerate development of consumer oriented “ultra-low voltage processors” of the Celeron and Core 2 processor lineups. The end result? New thin and light notebooks that were more powerful than netbooks while also commanding a slightly higher price point (while certainly lower than inexpensive ultra-light notebooks which run faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors).

A good containment plan for Intel right?

Unfortunately all the success the Atom processor has witnessed has resulted in competing chip manufacturers looking for a way to get into the market. This year alone we’ve seen new processors/plaforms from all the major players including AMD’s Neo processor, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor, ARM’s Cortex processor, and new VIA reference platforms built around C7-M and Nano processors – all in an effort to get a slice of the overall inexpensive mobile market. The message was clear to Intel – if they weren’t willing to improve the performance of low-end energy efficient processors, then the competition surely will.

As a result – we’re seeing a change in strategy for Intel. If the company wants to maintain its lead in all market segments – including the low-cost energy efficient netbook/MID market, then it needs to increase development of the Atom architecture. In the foreseeable future, we should see faster Atom processors as well as the upcoming Pine-trail architecture which integrates the GPU with the CPU.

What does this all mean to the consumer? More choices, faster systems, better battery life, and hopefully more inexpensive systems on the horizon. Good stuff!

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