[PCWorld] Intel kills the Atom line

[ShintaiDK]

So to make sure I understand correctly, Intel has killed only the smartphone/tablet Atom SoCs?

For the time being we're still expecting to see Atom for microservers (that is to say like, Avoton, Denverton, and whatever-comes-after-Denverton)?

And of course whatever Frankenstein-ian Atom thing the Xeon Phi is made out of is still alive?

No. Intel have killed Phone and Android tablet. Only ones with contra revenue.

Willowview for Windows tablets, NAS and whatever is still there.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Thank you!

 

[bhtooefr]

I was under the impression that Willow Trail was a Broxton variant, and is therefore also dead, and that Apollo Lake would be taking its place. (So, almost the same thing, but with Celeron/Pentium branding instead of Atom branding, and maybe with higher TDPs.)

But, Apollo Lake, Braswell's replacement, is definitely still on. That's what you'd find in a NAS. And, Denverton hasn't been said to have been cancelled. Knights Landing (the latest current Xeon Phi) is Airmont-derived (although, as I understand, heavily modified for better AVX support), and therefore is actually a generation before Apollo Lake and Denverton.

 

[dark zero]

Thank you!

Not necessary.. Maybe the rest of Atom line, except Phi will die sooner.... And when Core enters on Phi, Atom will be history.

 

[Shivansps]

No. Intel have killed Phone and Android tablet. Only ones with contra revenue.

Willowview for Windows tablets, NAS and whatever is still there.

Windows tablet have contra revenue as well, how you could explain there are some sub $100 Z8300 tablets? and some with fullhd screens.

Im petty sure Willow Trail was axed as well, Apollo Lake its the only one living and i think its just because we are way too near to its launch date.

 

[Exophase]

No. Intel have killed Phone and Android tablet. Only ones with contra revenue.

Willowview for Windows tablets, NAS and whatever is still there.

Intels roadmaps and codenames are confusing as all get out...

http://wccftech.com/intel-atom-soc-...d-14nm-airmont-goldmont-based-chips-detailed/

Here we see there was one document that listed Willow View (the only place I can find it) as the Willow Trail SoC, actually renamed to "Willow Trail SoC." Then on another roadmap it actually lists Morganfield as the Willow Trail SoC. Even more daunting is that the two documents have dates that are just a few days apart, but they're both pretty old (2013)

Then there's the other SoCs that silently vanished like Riverton.

Here's a similar roadmap image, but about half a year later:

http://ontabletpc.mywapblog.com/2015-roadmap-of-intel.xhtml

Now the successor platform for Cherry Trail is Broxton and Broxton Pro, not Willow Trail.

Then there's this image and similar, AFAIK also 2014:

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...ntial-explanations-for-intel-corporation.aspx

Broxton and SoFIA MID were called out as successors to Moorefield and Cherry Trail, no mention of Willow Trail.

And for compute sticks, for that matter, although that's basically been revised to include Cherry Trail:

http://liliputing.com/2015/06/intel...4gb-model-in-2015-broxton-models-in-2016.html

Intel has said that they're cancelling Atom for phones and tablets, not just Android tablets. So I have my doubts that there will be a tablet specific SoC and platform coming out now, but I do still think Apollo Lake can be repurposed for some tablets (and obviously for convertibles)

 

[bhtooefr]

Really, my understanding was that the Cherry Trail silicon was actually exactly the same silicon as Braswell, just better binned, fused differently, and with things (like SATA) not bonded out to the package.

So, you could just sell the better binned, differently fused Apollo Lakes as Apollo Lakes.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Really, my understanding was that the Cherry Trail silicon was actually exactly the same silicon as Braswell, just better binned, fused differently, and with things (like SATA) not bonded out to the package.

So, you could just sell the better binned, differently fused Apollo Lakes as Apollo Lakes.

There might be a legitimate difference. Pineview had quite a bit of difference from Medfield/Clover Trail.

It wasn't just TDPs. The mass Tablet market is likely closer to phones than PCs. That's served by Willow Trail/Morganfield. Then there's the PC-focused segment with higher platform power and PC level I/O's like SATA.

Here we see there was one document that listed Willow View (the only place I can find it) as the Willow Trail SoC, actually renamed to "Willow Trail SoC." Then on another roadmap it actually lists Morganfield as the Willow Trail SoC. Even more daunting is that the two documents have dates that are just a few days apart, but they're both pretty old (2013)

"Trail" is traditionally the platform, "-view" the SoC. Oakview/Oak Trail, Pineview/Pine Trail, Cloverview/Clover Trail.

Now the successor platform for Cherry Trail is Broxton and Broxton Pro, not Willow Trail.

As I understand, Broxton is like Silvermont and Airmont. Core names. Then you have the SoC-specific names, like "-view". Then you have platform specific names like "Trail".

So based on what Intel was saying we may be able to conclude as follows.

Platform:
Cherry Trail-->Willow Trail
Braswell-->Apollo Lake
Mooresfield-->Morganfield?

Core:
Silvermont/Airmont-->Broxton

Of course, with Broxton generation, Intel was supposed to unify Smartphones/Tablets. Unlike now where Cherry Trail uses Gen 8 Intel GPU + others while Mooresfield uses PowerVR + other differences.

And when Core enters on Phi, Atom will be history.

Unlikely. Until current "Core" chips become the "small" core. I think Core cores are 5x + the size. Broadwell is nearly 7mm, and Skylake is probably at 8-9mm2. Knights Landing's core with 512-bit vector execution units are only at 3mm2. And in achieving mass parallelism, the additions that Core has does nothing.

 

[mikk]

Core:
Silvermont/Airmont-->Broxton

CPU core is named Goldmont.

 

[TechFan1]

Didn't HoloLens use an atom CPU? Interesting to see if the first released version has core, or Arm processor. Did they just cancel Broxton, but not the next version of Atom?

 

[Exophase]

"Trail" is traditionally the platform, "-view" the SoC. Oakview/Oak Trail, Pineview/Pine Trail, Cloverview/Clover Trail.

Valleyview/Valley Trail? Maybe not quite.

Of course with the phone platforms its pretty much never worked this way.

I can't find a mention of Willowview after June 2013 so I doubt it's going to be a released SoC now. Then again, I also doubt Willow Trail is going to be a released platform.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Valleyview/Valley Trail? Maybe not quite.

Of course with the phone platforms its pretty much never worked this way.

I can't find a mention of Willowview after June 2013 so I doubt it's going to be a released SoC now. Then again, I also doubt Willow Trail is going to be a released platform.

It's a mess.

None of this matters now. I guess they can get low end PC market going but despite all their claims of "coming back with 5G" or whatever they are dead in this space. No one is going to use yours after you abandon them.

ARM has won. Also, I think ISA did matter in a sense. It seems significant part of the reason that they needed different versions is because all the legacy support for PC. Perhaps its really the legacy "must run everything" mentality that's killing them from really advancing.

Why couldn't they get Core platforms to be equal power to Atom, instead they have 2x the difference? Even with Skylake you need 50WHr battery on an average system to achieve 8-10 hour battery life. Computers instead turned to fashion accessories costing thousands of dollars with minimal changes.

 

[ViRGE]

Hey IU, thanks for the commentary. This has been a really enlightening thread.

Why couldn't they get Core platforms to be equal power to Atom, instead they have 2x the difference? Even with Skylake you need 50WHr battery on an average system to achieve 8-10 hour battery life. Computers instead turned to fashion accessories costing thousands of dollars with minimal changes.

I don't think they can't. It's rather they won't. They need that segmentation between Atom and Core to avoid eroding Core and putting their high profit margins at risk. I don't doubt for a second Intel could do a sub-5W iPad Air/Pro suitable style SoC with the Core line, if they really wanted to.

 

[Qwertilot]

Suspect they couldn't just yet - CoreM is the closest of course, but that's much happier with the extra TDP in fanless laptops.

Obviously they could do a CPU design between Atom and the Core stuff size wise, wonder if they ever really had the market to justify that kind of effort?

No point doing it now, because just leaving core roughly alone size wise for the next few die shrinks will get CoreM down to 'small core' territory. Their, really quite major, worry must be that even Core style performance is going to turn into a commodity rather sooner than they'd like.....

 

[IntelUser2000]

Thanks, Virge.

Come on guys, TDP isn't the problem. Haswell demonstrated that fantastically. Battery life increased by 50%!

As a platform Atom is far lower than Core M. Actually, the problem with Core M is that the battery life isn't better than 15W Core ix chips. People forget that in most usage models, the TDP is irrelevant(except it tells peak performance) because the chip should be at much lower power level when there isn't much happening, and everything else on the platform starts dominating. Not just display.

The fact that they want to keep margins add to the argument for Core chips to reach Atom platform in platform power levels. The pricing would be better justified compared to Atom.

Look how bad Core M is:

Atom = Low power, low cost, low performance
15W Core ix = High performance, high power, high cost
Core M = Medium performance, high cost, high power

The only difference between Core ix and Core M is that the latter is fanless.

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

The only difference between Core ix and Core M is that the latter is fanless.

Well that's the whole point of core M, no?
For me at least that's worth the performance penalty.

 

[Dufus]

There are still new devices being released with Atom in it.

Like the Tag Heuer connected for just $1500

 

[TeknoBug]

Like the Tag Heuer connected for just $1500

hahaha

 

[StrangerGuy]

Hey IU, thanks for the commentary. This has been a really enlightening thread.

I don't think they can't. It's rather they won't. They need that segmentation between Atom and Core to avoid eroding Core and putting their high profit margins at risk. I don't doubt for a second Intel could do a sub-5W iPad Air/Pro suitable style SoC with the Core line, if they really wanted to.

Doing a pure general purpose Core CPU that runs <5W is one thing. Doing that at the level of mobile SoC integration of Apple/Qualcomm with the idle power is another.

Not to mention Intel's Achilles heel of being solely dependent on their struggling PC OEM partners who has proven time and time again to fail miserably in making compelling products built around their chips.

 

[cytg111]

Doing a pure general purpose Core CPU that runs <5W is one thing. Doing that at the level of mobile SoC integration of Apple/Qualcomm with the idle power is another.

Not to mention Intel's Achilles heel of being solely dependent on their struggling PC OEM partners who has proven time and time again to fail miserably in making compelling products built around their chips.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/micr...ber-with-intel-core-m-cpu-report-498270.shtml

So, with a truckload of salt. Still.

 

[Arachnotronic]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/micr...ber-with-intel-core-m-cpu-report-498270.shtml

So, with a truckload of salt. Still.

Zero chance of this. Core m is garbage for smartphone like form factors/power levels. For one thing, the image signal processor on Core m Skylake couldn't even handle the sheer number of megapixels that a Surface Phone camera would require given what we typically see with the Lumia cameras.

 

[bhtooefr]

It's worth noting, however, that the rumored Surface Phone was never expected to be a Lumia.

Idle power consumption would be the concern, though, and Skylake certainly wouldn't be able to do it - doesn't seem to throttle down enough. Kaby Lake, though? Who knows.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Zero chance of this. Core m is garbage for smartphone like form factors/power levels. For one thing, the image signal processor on Core m Skylake couldn't even handle the sheer number of megapixels that a Surface Phone camera would require given what we typically see with the Lumia cameras.

The ultimate irony is Intel's for all their prowess in raising Core IPC and silicon manufacturing, their incompetence with specialized fixed function units still continues to doom them in mobile. ARM is so far ahead in this area it's not even funny.

 

[Arachnotronic]

The ultimate irony is Intel's for all their prowess in raising Core IPC and silicon manufacturing, their incompetence with specialized fixed function units still continues to doom them in mobile. ARM is so far ahead in this area it's not even funny.

Yep. Funny, if Intel would get over its NIH attitude, it could license a good deal of this technology straight from ARM.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Well that's the whole point of core M, no?
For me at least that's worth the performance penalty.

True, some want fanless.

But is that worth paying the identical price as 15W Core ix chips that perform noticeably better? Same form factor, same price, same power use, but fanless.

The ultimate irony is Intel's for all their prowess in raising Core IPC and silicon manufacturing, their incompetence with specialized fixed function units still continues to doom them in mobile. ARM is so far ahead in this area it's not even funny.

I think this is sort of true with Xeon Phi too.* Also Larrabee. They are much more fixed function and specialized than their Core(pardon the pun) chips. Possibly for Atom too. So it really must suck for them when like with Netburst they weren't competent in ANYthing.

*Xeon Phi seems fine, until you see benchmark numbers. They are claiming 2-3x over 2P Xeon setups. Well, at least with Nvidia Tesla models, you can get 5-10x speed up in niche applications. Do you really bother porting for 2x gain? I've read one person in the field of HPC say the reason Xeons remain popular is because porting code is too expensive for lot of folks.