Mobile World Congress 2015

[witeken]

After CES, the next major event this year is of course MWC.

There are slew of things that will be talked about:

Samsung will announce the Galaxy S6, possibly with Samsung's own Exynos SoC on its 14 node. There will be a ton of new smartwatches, like the Pebble Time, LG Watch Urbane LTE. Samsung has also announced 128GB UFS storage for smartphones. Motorola has the Mote E, Microsoft Band. From Qualcomm we'll get the S810 and Huawei also has a Watch.

As far as Intel is concerned, they probably won't give anything away about Skylake or 14nm, but we'll get SoFIA 3G, maybe some infos about 3G-R and 4G, and hopefully Cherry Trail, which is half a year late, will go into the market soon with its slightly higher clock speed and 2X graphics. At least they will rebrand Atom. We'll find out March 2nd. Or as Russ Fischer puts it:

Now Brian seems like a nice down to earth sort of guy, but he is, after all, the CEO of a $55 billion company and probably has better things to do than spend time at a mobility show only to get abused by the participants with real mobile products. Maybe I am just naive, but I simply can't see Brian attending the show only to be embarrassed by a less than leadership mobile product portfolio.

What are you looking forward to most? I'll update the post below with the most interesting news.

 

[krumme]

By far the perf/watt perf of lpe 14nm finfet Exynos. Finfet where it really matters and can be perciewed by normal consumers in phones and a catalyser for future wearables.

Looking at the accelerating r&d budget samsung is having and the huge monster company its always interesting how they perform and where they go. S6 needs to be a success or apple will leave them in the dust.

Keep the news comming !

 

[Nothingness]

From Qualcomm we'll get the S810

I hope we'll get more than S810 which was announced in April 2014. Perhaps their new in-house designed core?

Waiting for your coverage

 

[witeken]

For those interested, BK's presentation can be watched here tomorrow:

http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-6303

 

[Arachnotronic]

For those interested, BK's presentation can be watched here tomorrow:

http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-6303

I hope this presentation is more interesting than the one he gave at CES

 

[witeken]

I hope this presentation is more interesting than the one he gave at CES

I haven't watched that one, and I'm not yet sure if I'll watch this one. I don't expect anything exciting from Atom in 2015, and nothing new at MWC that would be worth watching instead of reading the coverage from AT.

 

[witeken]

So the S6 is indeed built on Samsung's 20nm + FinFET node. Not bad. I wonder how this will impact performance since the frequency is the same as the M9.

 

[Arachnotronic]

So the S6 is indeed built on Samsung's 20nm + FinFET node.

It's actually spelled 14nm FinFET

 

[witeken]

It's actually spelled 14nm FinFET

I will reserve 14nm + FinFET for Samsung and TSMC's 10nm node.

 

[Fjodor2001]

Yes, the S6 is 14 nm. Samsung confirmed it on their live event at MWC 1 minute ago...

 

[Arachnotronic]

I will reserve 14nm + FinFET for Samsung and TSMC's 10nm node.

But that's not what they're calling it.

 

[witeken]

But that's not what they're calling it.

It's semantics, you can call it whatever you want. In my humble opinion, from what I've read, the name 14nm + 2nd Gen FinFET nails SS's 10nm node exactly.

 

[Fjodor2001]

So who's likely to deliver most 14 nm chips actually available in stores in 2015Q2? Intel or Samsung?

 

[Arachnotronic]

It's semantics, you can call it whatever you want. In my humble opinion, from what I've read, the name 14nm + 2nd Gen FinFET nails SS's 10nm node exactly.

I'm calling it what Samsung is calling it. By calling it something other than what it's actually called, you're just confusing people

 

[dahorns]

NVM

 

[Arachnotronic]

So who's likely to deliver most 14 nm chips actually available in stores in 2015Q2? Intel or Samsung?

Interesting question...

 

[witeken]

Interesting question...

There are other interesting questions as well:

*Which process node is superior? In which metrics?
*Which process node will be found in most products and markets?
*Which node has the highest yields?
*Which company will make more money from its process technology?

 

[monstercameron]

There are other interesting questions as well:



*Which process node is superior? In which metrics?

*Which process node will be found in most products and markets?

*Which node has the highest yields?

*Which company will make more money from its process technology?

And none of that matters on the consumers side. Only ANALysts care that data.

 

[Idontcare]

And none of that matters on the consumers side. Only ANALysts care that data.

More than just analysts care. Anyone and everyone whose livelihood is directly or indirectly tied to the industry most certainly cares. This stuff impacts millions of people in determining if they get to keep their job, or if their job security is in jeopardy over the next 12-18 months.

But I do agree with you that by and large the vast majority of otherwise unattached and unaffected consumers won't (or simply can't) care.

 

[ninaholic37]

What are you looking forward to most? I'll update the post below with the most interesting news.

Cherry Trail for netbooks (Braswell?) and more details about Atom X3, X5, X7 segmentation.

 

[witeken]

Finally, Intel addressed the obvious lack of a high-end mobile SoC that fits into the performance smartphone category. Intel is still working on development of such a SoC in the form of Braxton and we'll have more news on this piece in the future.

Not really anything to be excited about. SoFIA is up to quadcore SVM at 1.4GHz. I doubt BK's presentation will add anything new to this.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9026/...rated-lte-atom-renaming-and-14nm-cherry-trail

 

[mikk]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9026/...rated-lte-atom-renaming-and-14nm-cherry-trail
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-03/...-airmont-kerne-mit-broadwell-grafik-in-14-nm/
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-03/intels-sofia-socs-kommen-von-tsmc-in-28-nm/
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Intel-Prozessoren-Atom-x3-x5-x7-und-XMM-7360-Modem.137431.0.html


x7-8700 the fastest x7 initially?

 

[witeken]

This is what Broxton will compete with:

Snapdragon 820

 

[Nothingness]

Not really anything to be excited about. SoFIA is up to quadcore SVM at 1.4GHz.

All of SoFIA are using ARM Mali. I would have expected Imgtec for at least the higher-end. I guess ARM GPU are priced more aggressively.

I doubt BK's presentation will add anything new to this.

So Russ Fischer hypothesis of some groundbreaking announcement (about digital radio) would be proven wrong?

 

[witeken]

All of SoFIA are using ARM Mali. I would have expected Imgtec for at least the higher-end. I guess ARM GPU are priced more aggressively.

They toke Infineon's SoC and ditched the ARM core for SVM.

So Russ Fischer hypothesis of some groundbreaking announcement (about digital radio) would be proven wrong?

Yes. Intel is serious about mobile so they show up at MWC, but don't expect anything revolutionary. We already got their 2015 roadmap, which is what 2014 should have been, so hopefully they can finally catch up in 2016 with compelling 14nm low-end offerings, and leading CPU and GPU performance with Broxton -- moving to 10nm in H2 -- and modem on par with QQ.