Intel's Medfield & Atom Z2460 Arrive for Smartphones: It's Finally Here
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 10, 2012 8:00 PM ESTARM Compatibility: Binary Translation
Similar to Apple's move from PowerPC to x86, Intel finds itself in a difficult position with bringing Atom to Android. The OS isn't an issue as it has already been ported to x86 and all further releases will be available in both ARM and x86 flavors. The bigger problem is application compatibility.
There's already support for targeting both ARM and x86 architectures in the Android NDK so anything developed going forward should be ok so long as the developer is aware of x86.
Obviously the first party apps already work on x86, but what about those in the Market?
By default all Android apps run in a VM and are thus processor architecture agnostic. As long as the apps are calling Android libraries that aren't native ARM there, once again, shouldn't be a problem. Where Intel will have a problem is with apps that do call native libraries or apps that are ARM native (e.g. virtually anything CPU intensive like a 3D game).
Intel believes that roughly 75% of all Android apps in the Market don't feature any native ARM code. The remaining 25% are the issue. The presumption is that eventually this will be a non-issue (described above), but what do users of the first x86 Android phones do? Two words: binary translation.
Intel isn't disclosing much about the solution, but by intercepting ARM binaries and translating ARM code to x86 code on the fly during execution Intel is hoping to achieve ~90% app compatibility at launch. Binary translation is typically noticeably slower than running native code, although Intel is unsurprisingly optimistic about the experience on Android. I'm still very skeptical about the overall experience but we'll have to wait and see for ourselves.
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BSMonitor - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
Lot of "if's" and "shoulds" in your argument.Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
Well, he's comparing Atom with ARM based on benchmarks that Intel has provided, and for a chip that won't be out until the end of the year. So that's not very realistic either. Intel has been saying for a long time that "this is finally the year we're going to compete with ARM". I'm very skeptical at this point, until I really see it in the market, in a real phone, and see how it does against the competition then.tipoo - Thursday, January 12, 2012 - link
Indeed, we'll have to wait and see. Also, since this chip is a single core its easier to get its full potential, on apps that are well threaded we might see even current ARM chips beat it.Donnie Darko - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
I'm generally more excited to see x86 in the market because it will drive competition more than it will drive Intel into a new field.It was an impressive technology demo, but to be honest untill they can integrate the base band radio onto the SOC they won't compete. You will be able to buy their phones and that's nice, but Qualcom will still dominate the market with Sammy/Ti and even Nvidia (shudder) rounding out most of the other designs.
Having a top to bottom stack will be nice though for everyone. Arm laptops/tablets, file servers, massivly-wide simple-instruction servers and phones. x86 HP computing (Sever->Tablets) and phones. If Intel can make enough of a beac h head then we should see AMD in the mobile space in a couple of years two. Their synthesisable CPU cores with Bobcat and their GPUs would be wicked down there.
guilmon19 - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
I usually like competition as well, but when intel jumps in there i (shudder). At the moment Samsung, Motorla, qualcom, texas, ect were competing with each other with their own SoC, but they had to use the same fab to build their CPU's, but intel has their own fab(that is alot better then the ones used to build ARM) so they get a huge advantage over all those companies.Griswold - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
It's the answer to a question nobody asked!tipoo - Thursday, January 12, 2012 - link
And to the left of it! Its the comment that means no one but the original poster, if even that!pugster - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
Frankly, I don't know how does Intel can do 1.6ghz cpu and 400mhz gpu for less power than an arm cpu. Gees, we have seen 1.6ghz atom cpus in netbooks and the power envelope is much higher and a 32nm process can't reduce this much further.Second, the phone's cpu is usually in deep sleep most of the time, intel didn't really benchmark what happens when the phone is idle, IE standby time.
Third, is cost. Unless Intel start selling these cpus at giveaway prices for less than $15, I doubt that these phones are competitive to ARM variants.
Fourth is adoption rate. Considering that most of the apps are written for the ARM cpus, I wonder when phone manufacturers and porogrammers will port intel version of their apps.
bobsmith1492 - Thursday, January 12, 2012 - link
The article covers power consumption and porting.Cost is a valid concern! Real-life use cycles will be good to show how quick it transitions into and out of sleep for real-life power use. Being faster when active with the same power use though it should be better if anything. The clock rate scaling will compete against the big-little architecture for ARM, too.
Roy2001 - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
Very impressive. Good job Intel!