VIA's Brown was not convinced that experience from the mobile phone (ARM processor camp) and PC (x86 processor camp) markets alone would necessarily provide the expertise to produce successful MIDs. He characterised the situation as the ARM camp needing to scale up in terms of raw performance and software application development, and the x86 camp needing to scale down in terms of power consumption and an improvement in the software interface for small devices. He was bullish about VIA's chances of squaring this circle and getting the balance right. "At VIA," he said, "we can see very clearly our path to scaling down the power draw, as that has been our expertise and main focus of our x86 processing business over the last eight years."
The x86 compatibility issue
In the realm of PCs, support for the x86 architecture is considered essential. What about MIDs? Will this established processor family remain dominant, or does a new platform demand a new architecture? We asked each of the manufacturers why, if at all, they thought x86 support was imperative. As you can imagine, views were divided.
Intel's Kedia stated quite categorically that "for mobile Internet devices to run the internet as we know and love it today, x86 is essential. Intel Atom processors, which are Core 2 Duo-compatible and fully x86-compliant, deliver the performance and compatibility to run the internet in its entirety." His second argument related to compatibility. "The Internet has been written on the x86 PC for the x86 PC since 1994," he claimed. "Today, over five billion websites are optimised to run in this environment. An x86 PC supports a myriad of codecs, plugins, extensions, media players and latest web technologies. And these technologies and standards continue to evolve as the innovation on the Internet continues."
While there's a great deal of truth in this assertion, it's pertinent to point out that users of non-Windows operating systems such as Linux, Unix variants and Mac OS X – which use both x86 and non-x86 processors – all enjoy good levels of web support, which suggests that there's nothing that makes the x86 architecture particularly suited to web applications. More relevant perhaps is the commercial decision to support a platform. History suggests that software houses will back a platform if it gains a significant foothold in the market, whatever its technological capabilities.
As another supplier of x86 chips, VIA's Timothy Brown was equally predictable in his response, suggesting that raw performance and software compatibility demanded the use of x86 architecture.
Morris had a radically different take on the question. "Support for x86 is essential only if you want to run Windows XP or Vista", he said. "It's clear that the web is not hardware architecture dependent. With Adobe's Open Screen Project and Microsoft's Silverlight (a cross-browser, crossplatform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering media and interactive applications to the web), ARM is well on the way to closing the gap with the PC by mid 2009. The iPhone has shown what a good browsing solution can do for the mobile internet."
MID product releases
Bearing the relevant arguments in mind, where does the industry stand today? Which MID manufacturers have chosen to go with each of the semiconductor manufacturers?
Intel announced its first-generation low-power platform (formerly codenamed Menlow) for mobile Internet devices in April this year. Since then, a few customers have launched devices based on this, and others are expected to do so through the rest of the 2008. Intel have disclosed a long list of signed-up system manufacturers, such as Aigo, Asus, BenQ, Clarion, Digifriends, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, Hanbit, KJS, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sophia Systems, Tabletkoisk, USI, WiBrain and Yuk Yung.
