#z2460

So I've been reading about Intel entering the mobile SoC market for what seems like forever. They were originally promised to land with MeeGo devices. That time came and went with only a prototype or two. LG had crafted the GW990 based on the then-current Intel Moorestown platform, which at the time was based on the Lincroft Atom Z6xx series for ultra mobile devices. Intel really hasn't had much success with the Z-series since their primary customers have been using that platform for Windows machines. Windows on a Z-series platform leaves MUCH to be desired, even in comparison to the Atom N-series for Netbooks. Much of the performance issues Windows has on Z-series comes from the GPU and it's drivers. PowerVR/IMGtec has notoriously under-optimized Windows graphics drivers. 

But anyway, back to Android...

Intel's new entry into the ARM market segment is Medfield. Medfield is a single core Atom SoC with HT. Intel's new Atom platform, the Z2460, is a monolithic in-order execution CPU core with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. It has Hyperthreading to fill in the gaps in instruction execution, creating a quasi second thread. I say "quasi" because it's not another complete thread in that it's not another physical core. Atom Z2460 also has a dual-channel 32-bit memory controller with hardware for full 1080p 30FPS video encode/decode. All in all it's competitive with the almost year old dual-core Cortex A9 references such as TI's OMAP4 or Samsung's Exynos. With that in mind it's really not that impressive. Intel's entire future in this segment will hinge on how well they can deliver on their promise of improved performance and efficiency in subsequent versions of it's Atom mobile SoC platform. Intel certainly has some catching up to do, with the likes of Cortex A15 coming this year. Intel has pushed X86 optimizations directly into the Android source tree, so the optimization for the platform is something Intel is taking very seriously. Plus Google has announced a direct partnership with Intel for bringing X86 to Android.