Mobile: Intel Will Overtake Qualcomm In Three Years
The Crazy Story Of BitBoys
The other dominant player is Qualcomm and its Adreno graphics technology. The story of Adreno is worth noting because Qualcomm bought it from AMD. AMD bought this technology from ATI. And ATI bought it by acquiring BitBoys.
Now, anyone who knows tech history will remember that BitBoys is one of those companies infamous for its vaporware. But products based on its technology really did exist. It’s a crazy story, actually, and we like telling crazy stories.
Everything starts back in 1991. In the early 90s, Finland was home to the demo scene, which is where programmers (many of whom were just high school kids) would get together and write software able to push computer hardware to its limit. The idea was to pull off visual effects so awesome that you couldn’t believe they were running on commodity components, and to pull that off so efficiently that the data would fit into an absurdly small file. These demos combined creativity, video and audio talent, and pure programming genius. Competitions included stuff like the best intro (with graphics and audio) in 4 KB of space, or the best 64 KB demo (you owe it to yourself to check this out). And then there was the best mega demo, which had no constraints. Think of it like Step-Up 2: The Streets, only with software engineers instead of dancers.
One of the most respected groups at the time was Future Crew, who took first place at the biggest competition of the time: Assembly. Mika Tuomi (also known as Trug) was one of the lead coders. He and his brother, along with their friends, started a company called BitBoys. At first, they just paid the bills with software development for local businesses. But when they tackled the Second Reality demo, they found their calling for 3D graphics.
Some connections and contacts were made and soon they were engineering a graphics chip known as the Pyramid3D for a company called TriTech. Most folks consider that to be the first piece of vaporware from BitBoys, but Pyramid3D did make it past the design stage. There are stacks of prototype boards out there, many in the wild, and the hardware was demoed at various Microsoft events. Development definitely took longer than expected, and there were multiple respins and failures. But, in the end, the product really existed. The problem was that TriTech also happened to make audio chips, which also happened to violate Cirrus Logic’s patents. TriTech lost a lawsuit and, in light of royalties owed, the company shut down before Pyramid3D could reach consumers.
Doh.
Of course, you can’t keep a demo coder down. So the BitBoys team regrouped and tried again. This time, they went to companies like Real3D (a spin-off of Lockheed, bought out by Intel), Rendition (bought out by Micron), Creative Labs (which ended up buying 3DLabs), ATI, Nvidia, and even Diamond Multimedia. No one wanted to work with them, so they decided they would do it on their own.
This was when they started working on Glaze3D, which promised amazing fill rate performance with 9 MB of embedded DRAM. The company got its first round of venture capital and selected Infineon as its manufacturing partner, owing to significant embedded DRAM expertise.
Really?
Putting this sentence aside, its an interesting article.
Finally, I would say I did not like these global claims that intel has never failed in fab as I think they have been delayed for a bit on their last process or always demonstrated great platforms (since the original atoms I would not consider great to use for running windows...). I like intel and own their stock so I hope they do well, but I think they face more of an uphill battle that you see. I don't think that people did not think they would come into the market at a somewhat competitive place in analysis, but I really feel they are a disconnected fit (and this could just be me...) to this market. I have read money market people say that they will have a harder time entering into the smartphone market with ARMS market share expanding greatly in the next 3 years. I like the idea of the pairing with motorola for their chips because I think that will a) tie them to android (as I think meego is dead...) b) may let them offer solution akin to what the Atrix ideal could have been. Overall, an interesting article about future challenges with FAB/Design
You look at just Intel and Qualcomm,ignoring players that are more than capable to compete.
You also assume that performance is the most important aspect when in the end the reality is that CPUs are getting cheaper,a lot cheaper and those cheap chips will keep gaining market share while Intel can't match those prices without getting crippled. Servers and a growing market will help Intel for a while but at some point the funds available for R&D and fabs will start to shrink.(BTW my post,unlike this article,is not sponsored by anyone.)
Also (and more importantly) will the software help Intel in the same way as during the Wintel dominance? Microsoft itself has planned Windows 8 for less resource requirements than Windows 7 has now. Will there any need be for "above the ARM level" of performance in the coming years?
Also (and even more importantly) how Intel will cope with the mounting pressure on its chip prices? If Intel will not be able to held those prices high enough it could fast loose the revenue it is getting now.
In other words: during those three years Intel's ware may become a commodity where only price or Price/performance what is counting. Even now, as noted in today's news by Digitimes:
"TSMC seeing 3G chip orders boom, sources say
...
Qualcomm, MediaTek and Broadcom have all introduced their more integrated single-chip solutions targeted at the market for low-priced 3G smartphones in China. Each of the new chips - manufactured using 40nm and below node technologies - accounts for less than US$10 of total component cost a model would carry, the sources pointed out."
How Intel will compete with that, not in 3 years, but in 2012? Than in 2013? And finally in 2014?
So, given all that above I could subscribe to your prophecy at all!
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones
though at the end of the article, christian bale didn't have a twin.
The most important piece of the Jigsaw is missing, power consumption. But you would expect thaf from somebody fixated on performance. Intel will struggle to make X86 work in anything other than tablets and High end handsets, it will have a tiny niche in three years, if it is lucky. And with MS opening up Windows they will lose share in thin clients and laptops.
LOL
no one got away with seeing the underside of the cards on the table
The problem of course is that because Intel can use a much more advanced node it can make the chips extremely cheaper than what ARM chips can be made. Medfield is somewhere around 65mm^2 while the Tegra 3 is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90mm^2. After Intel's SoC moves to a 22nm node the die size should shrink to around 45mm^2. Which means Intel will be able to push these things out for pocket change.
Great spin but waaaaaaaaaaay too much Intel bias in here to really be objective. Dont just assume Intel is the only one in the market that will advance in the future and everyone else will try to peddle by on what they already have.
I don't think Intel 2015 will beat Qualcomm 2015 *and* Qualcomm 2012 proportionally. Intel 2015 will beat Qualcomm 2015 also because NVIDIA 2015, TI 2015, Samsung 2015, Marvell 2015, and Apple 2015 will be eating away at Qualcomm.
intel has a lot more money and experience....it could happen...btw nice phone, where can i get one
I remember when the demo scene started and downloading them from local BBSs in South Florida.. The scene went from dedicated groups pushing the limits, to every pirating group releasing their own demos and including them in all of their releases along with ANSI graphics and/or ASCII file_id.diz's..
Anyway, back on topic.. As dragonsqrrl already mentioned, Intel already has Medfield and it seems to be very competitive already.. If Intel wants into this market, nothing can stop them.. They have the fabs, engineers, and more importantly the capital to invest to such a point that they could someday dominate this market as they do the desktop CPU market..
My bet is on Intel + MS, why? The x86 windows platform. If MS puts all the basic api's ect in the phone OS i look forward to be able to run the same software ect both on the phone and the computer. Windows is also the standard in desktop OS with a huge software library and they are trusted by most corps and that should give WP the push it needs. My guess of a possible future but new things surface the whole time so it could change tomorrow - I love progress!
Don't "Follow the money". Follow the People.