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Intel Inside your Mobile!

Techtree News Staff, Feb 14, 2008 2106 hrs IST

If we're to believe Anand Chandrasekher, head (Ultramobility Group) of Intel, the Internet experience on the mobile is set to improve.

Everyone seems to be making announcements and doing demos at Barcelona, and Intel is no exception. The chipmaker has said at the World Mobile Congress that it will start producing its "Menlow" chip platform -- designed specifically for Web browsing on mobile devices -- within three months. We don't know when Menlow-powered devices will hit the market, but if we are to believe Anand Chandrasekher, head (Ultramobility Group) of Intel, the Internet experience on the mobile is set to improve. Menlow will change things by providing a single platform for software developers. The idea, we are told, is to make the browsing experience on a mobile more similar to that on a computer, in addition to fixing common software glitches. In an interview at the Mobile World Congress, Chandrashekhar said, "You can't get the best Internet experience on a BlackBerry or an iPhone. The technology hasn't been there. At the moment, for each device that developers want the mobile Internet to run on -- BlackBerry, Motorola, HTC -- they need another port." Going by that, Menlow would have to be adopted by most mobile manufacturers for us to get "the best Internet experience"; indeed, Chandrasekher said he believes Menlow could replace the chip platforms based on designs by ARM in smart phones and other handhelds. In addition, he believes the market for mobile chip platforms (such as Menlow) will reach nearly $10 billion by 2011. There's more to come, but not quite now: Intel has had intentions for a while now to roll out chips that will bring computer-like processing power to handhelds, while simultaneously improving battery life. Handhelds don't currently have quite the processing power required to ably handle such elements as Flash, and that's where Intel could step in. Now, new x86 chips for mobiles -- code-named Silverthorne -- are expected to be out in the second half of 2008; they will power computers like Tablet PCs, which have 5- to 7-inches displays. Then, there's "Moorestown" to watch out for in the next two years. It is a single chip, the size of a fingernail, and so can be fitted into handsets; it consumes less than 1 percent of the power that low-power laptop chips do; and on that one chip are an x86 processor, a graphics adapter, and more!