The plan is simple but audacious: use the industry-leading 22nm silicon process that Intel announced earlier this month to cut, for example, the median notebook power requirements to about 18 watts from the 35 watts on today’s 32nm Sandy Bridge process and architecture; then ramp volumes across the product line so that half the company’s volume entering 2014 uses the lower-power, better-performance silicon.

First, lowering power consumption as measured in watts — cut in half — without cutting performance means twice the battery life. For notebook users, that means a choice between a much thinner and lighter laptop — can you say “Apple MacBook Air for the masses at mass market prices?” — without losing battery life, or alternatively, twice the battery life.

Second, these relative benefits will also accrue across the computing spectrum to desktops and servers, and especially enhancing Intel’s ability to deliver Systems on a Chip (SOCs) with Atom processors running at below a watt in tablets and smartphones. Lower electrical consumption is a high-priority in data centers and a growing priority and mandate in office desktops.

Why would Intel paint such a clear roadmap for the Ivy Bridge (2012) and Haswell (2013) generations of processors in a highly competitive market? In spite of record sales and profits, Intel’s stock is stuck in the low $20′s as some on Wall Street anticipate an Intel near-death experience from the late delivery of competitive smartphone and tablet chips. That won’t happen. The company wants investors to know that it’s not behind the eight-ball. Driven by rapidly growing emerging markets for traditional PCs and notebooks and a robust and continuing data center refresh cycle, the company claims it will grow at double-digit rates over the next three years without any revenue needed from smartphones and tablets.

But those Intel-based market-changing tablets and smartphones are coming, with highly competitive products in 2012 and after.  Across a global economy and time, I believe tablets and smartphones are an additive computing market opportunity. Intel’s SOC engine, the Atom processor line, gains from planned process improvements from today’s 45nm to 14nm in 2o14 across three nodes of silicon process in three years — about twice the rate of Core and Xeon microprocessors.

A second reason that Intel paints such a clear roadmap is the company’s total confidence in the recently announced 22nm process. The fact that Intel will produce all of its 2012 Ivy Bridge microprocessors using 100% 3D tri-gate 22nm transistors tells me the company is convinced it has the technology completely in hand. And the company upped the cap-ex ante this year, deliberately building more 22nm chip-making capacity to come online next year.

Is lower voltage and hence lower electrical consumption that big a deal? Yes, it certainly is. The original MacBook Air, the archetypical thin-and-light notebook launched in January 2008, uses a 17 watt Intel Core 2 microprocessor with dual cores at 1.4 GHz. This year, 32nm Sandy Bridge ultra-low voltage chips will clock 1.7 GHz with quad processors at 17 watts —  plus Turbo 2.0 temporary speed boosts up to 2.9 GHz. Ivy Bridge (22nm) in 2012 and the new Haswell micro-architecture in 2013 will improve that further.

The 2008 dual-core processor in the MacBook Air was a trade-off in notebook weight versus processor speed — the processor was OK but no speed demon. The quad core Sandy Bridge and subsequent generations are in the middle of notebook performance curves, now offering excellent computation capabilities while still sipping lightly from the battery. Mainstream notebooks will quickly migrate down to the 1.5-3.0 pound level, offer all day battery power, and a no-compromises user computing experience. They will be ultra-thin, ultra-responsive, and, with hardware and DNA from the McAfee acquisition, ultra-secure. As a road warrior, I look forward to taking permanently taking five pounds of carry weight off my shoulder.

The Atom processor will follow a similar but steeper power-to-performance curve as the heart of devices from the 0.1 watt to 10 watt range. As a betting technologist, the cards Intel dealt last week tell me Intel will have an easier job scaling power requirements down going forward than ARM processors will scaling performance up.

In fall 2009, the company said it was scaling from gadgets to mainframe-class servers across the computing continuum with one Intel Architecture, and a common set of software, tools, and developer experience. Last week, the company said it was confidently using its new 22nm technology to push the computing continuum down the voltage curve, with benefits to all kinds and levels of computing. Having voluntarily laid its cards and reputation on the table, Intel is surely planning on under-promising and over-delivering. I would not bet against it.

After briefings by Intel executives yesterday, my conclusions are that Intel has really ahead. I’ve sat through four previous generations of new transistor announcements, and it was the latest that got my serious attention.

The science of what Intel has done is relatively easy to explain (see more depth here and here): for fifty years, integrated circuits have been laid out like city street-maps in two dimensions, called “planar”. As the fabrication process has shrunk now to 22 nm, the shrinking physical area of each transistor creates huge problems in current leakage and gate current. Intel could have done another generation by shrinking its Sandy Bridge 32 nm transistors to 22 nm planar transistors, while picking up modest — 10%-20% performance was widely speculated — performance and power improvements. While Intel would be first to market with 22 nm, ten percent or so improvements is a ho-hum to the (jaded) computer industry. But Intel announced a switch to an industry-first three-dimensional transistor, fooling the market watchers.

3D transistors are laid on top of the usual circuit layout (see photo below). 3D transistor gates are wrapped around three sides of a vertical fin, hence the name tri-gate. Those three-sided contact points make the transistor much more efficient that planar transistors:

• 3D transistors work with much less input current
• allowing for a doubling of density, hence smaller chips
• requiring about half as many power transistors.

The Benefits of Intel’s 22nm Transistors
Compared to today’s Sandy Bridge 32 nm transistors,  22nm 3D transistor microprocessors will perform as well at half the power. For mobile, your battery life doubles. This has enormous implications for mainstream thin-and-light Core family notebooks in 2012 followed by Atom-based tablets and smartphones. For desktops and servers, you’ll see a growing family of more power-efficient processors slotted to electricity-constrained environments.

At the same power levels as today’s Sandy Bridge 32 nm transistors, you’ll find Ivy Bridge performing about 37% faster — a lot more eye-opening than 10%-20% we anticipated.

The much improved power-performance ratio that we’ll see in Ivy Bridge with 22nm silicon gives Intel great leeway in creating enticing products. I expect:

• Overclockers will push 6GHz while performance SKUs exceed 4.0GHz
• An expanded Turbo range of 1-1.5GHz allowing for a performance boost at whim
• Apple MacBook Air for the masses. Or at least the mainstream 1.5lb $600 Windows business laptop.
• By 2013, the tablet and smartphone war with ARM will see pitched battles. Ultra-low voltage Intel microprocessors finally have close-enough battery life to compete head-to-head.
• With a wider range of performance and power-sipping product opportunities, we’ll see more and different form factors.

Where 22nm 3D Transistors Place Intel
With 22nm planar transistors, Intel would lead the microprocessor industry. But the third-dimension transistors on top of a 22nm process likely put Intel two nodes ahead of the competition. Intel will lead in production-ready transistor technology for at least four years.

The fact that Intel will produce all of its 2012 Ivy Bridge microprocessors using 100% 3D tri-gate 22nm transistors tells me the company is convinced it has the technology completely in hand.

All in all,  22nm 3D transistors are truly revolutionary. By expanding the gate area with a 3D vertical fin, Intel is showing a higher-probability path to continuing Moore’s Law at 10nm and below in the 2015 timeframe. That assurance alone is worth tens of billions to the technology industry.

Intel 22nm Tri-Gate Transistors

General Mills Rice Chex

I have been watching with great fascination the moves Amazon has recently made with Android. Two weeks ago they launched the Amazon App store that focuses on Android apps and last week they announced their cloud based music service with a special version just for Android. Although Google has their own Android Marketplace, Amazon is bringing to Android a more structured store with room for users comments and reviews and the key step of vetting the apps they carry.

This is quite a strategic move by Amazon and one that could actually bring some sanity and consistency to the Android development community and all Android users. At the moment, Google’s own approach to creating Android is scattered. There are so many versions of this OS floating around that their customers, the OEM’s who license Android, are increasingly frustrated with Google’s lack of discipline in laying out a consistent roadmap for Android that they can follow.

At first they said they would have one version of Android for smartphones, and another for tablets. Now they say that they will merge both into a product codenamed Ice Cream and that it most likely will be the same OS used on Google TV’s in the future as well. Initially, vendors could only use one version for devices up to 7 inch screens and another one for screens larger then 7” but less then 11 inches.

Part of the problem with Google and their Android strategy was their view that Android needed to be Open Source. That meant that Google would create the core source code and then vendors who used it could customize it to deliver various forms of differentiation. While that is great in concept, what it has led to is various levels of fragmentation within Android devices, apps and even services. Interestingly, Google’s main goal with Android is to get it on as many devices as possible and use it as a medium to deliver Google search and ads to millions of users around the world. As I understand it, they have an annual goal to bring in $10.00 of ARPU (average revenue per unit) annually by the end of 2012. If they could get Android on 1 billion smartphones, tablets, TV’s, car navigation systems, etc, that could mean as much as $10 billion annually to their bottom line sometime in the future if they achieve this level of success.

But since Google is an engineering driven company, the focus has always been about delivering an OS that meets the stated goals I mentioned, not necessarily to create a structured OS with strict guidelines and enforce rigid best practices to deliver a constant user experience between devices. And by using an Open Source model, they pushed Android in this direction from the beginning and now it is coming back to bite them in the form of serious fragmentation as well as causing continual frustration and angry feedback from the licensees.

There is a reason that Apple and Microsoft are extremely successful with their operating systems and why Linux has struggled to gain any market share beyond its use in servers and controllers. Apple’s has total control of the OS, UI and in their case, standardization of certain connectors that are part of their IP. That means that all hardware and software developers must subscribe to Apple’s strict rules and SDK structure in order for their products to work on Mac OS X and IOS. This makes sure users experiences on Apple products are consistent and always work.

The same goes for Microsoft’s Windows OS. Microsoft drives the SDK and best practice rules and is quite strict with OEM’s and ODM’s as to what can be done with Windows outside of its core OS and UI. This too brings great sanity to developers and users who know that each Window application will work the same on any Windows PC they use. No fragmentation here. But with Linux, multiple versions exist and with most it is customized for use on each device/application. There is no consistency to UI, thus any attempt at making it a desktop OS has failed so far.

This is why Amazon’s ventures with Android is so interesting. Even though Google will continue down this Open Source path and stumble and bumble through the process of continually delivering updated versions of a core OS, Amazon could become a major influence in which version goes mainstream and what software OS version developers support. More importantly, they could become the trusted source for applications and services and in the end, steal a lot of thunder from Google. In fact, I think that Amazon could become the major disruptor to Android and emerge as the eventual center of the Android universe.

In Google’s grand scheme, they may even like this. As I mentioned above, their goal is to get Android on as many devices as possible and use it to drive search and ads through this Google OS platform. At the moment they have not declared their own cloud music service, which is the one area that they could have concern with. But if they continue down a path in which the store is pretty much open and not vetted, then Amazon gives this audience a safe and structured approach to discovering and acquiring Android apps and ties them to services. And Amazon could drive more standardization within the Android development community as well.

BTW, some were surprised that Amazon only announced their cloud based storage and music service tied to songs bought through the Amazon store. Many had hoped for a broader initiative from them. But we hear that Amazon decided to beat Apple to the punch with the cloud and music store service knowing full well that Apple will do something similar but something more. It is the “something more” that is still a mystery, but it appears that while Amazon may have more to offer in the future themselves, they are going to wait to see what Apple does with their cloud services when it is announced sometime this summer before showing more of their products and strategy of their own. But you can bet it will be tied to Android when they do.

The Amazon App store is already a big hit. And it is on track to become the most trusted source for acquiring apps for any Android device. If Amazon continues down this path towards greater influence with users and developers, it really could become the trusted source for Android guidance, apps and connected services.

Industry Impact

If this scenario plays out as we expect, OEM’s need to seriously consider getting behind Amazon’s efforts, especially their App Store and leverage Amazon’s reputation and consumer acceptance as a serious arbiter for the Android Community. It is our view that Amazon will become not only a trusted source for consumers to buy products and get Android information, we are also convinced their service play, that starts with their cloud music service will eventually expand to other areas such as device-to-device synchronization and other forms of cloud service offerings.

Although we believe Google will move in a similar direction, we are not convinced that Google will emerge as a trusted source for consumers given their refusal to vet their apps and how they keep changing directions with their Android OS platforms. The industry needs a powerhouse driving stability within Android and Amazon has, at least on paper, the best chance of bringing what I call adult supervision to the Android market.

Getting Started
Today, let’s explore how the industry is likely to work around Google to get where it (thinks) it needs to go.

My going-in premise is that Google does not want to treat Android with the product-level support needed for a variety of reasons, including corporate culture, lack of any real product business focus, and lack of revenue from Android licenses to pay for the support. Thus, with Google not filling the product support vacuum, industry players will step in to defend their investments and markets.

The Smartphone Low End
First, the tablet market-stopping problems are in Android 3.0, code-name Honeycomb. The older 2.x versions for smartphones are stable enough. User problems are primarily with variations and customizations in Android that are not supported by generic Android apps from third parties like the Angry Birds game.

The low end is not going to rally around a common smartphone version of Android. In fact, the free, open source nature of Android makes it particularly attractive for small phone manufacturers who target local markets with low-cost products. Think $100 smartphones in China. With no OS software costs to speak of, product development costs are minimized — a critical economic point in short technology cycles like smartphones. To these ODMs, the idea is to create 90% of the experience with their embedded apps. If the customer downloads apps from the App Store that don’t work, caveat emptor.

My conclusion is that Google is losing the low end of the Android market and has no easy way to get it back. Humpty Dumpty Android fell off the great wall of China.

Google will continue to do some Android innovation on smartphones, especially with large firms like Samsung and HTC, and the software will trickle down to open source. But the low end will just take what’s on the “free software” shelf and productize it, warts and all.

The Tablet High-End
The scenario is simple. Google and its Honeycomb partners are in real trouble. The industry’s first Honeycomb tablet, the Motorola Xoom, is dead in the water with only a couple of dozen apps and plagued by software problems. Follow-on products by other manufacturers are widely reported as postponed. The tablet “anti-iPads” lack a viable competitor to Apple right now, this quarter. And Google is making no public pronouncements about “how it’s going to throw all the resources necessary to make this terrible situation right.”

The signs are that Google is looking for a white knight — or hostile takeover — to get the spotlight off these Android problems and out of Google’s active hands. Honeycomb has become a hot potato.

The White Knight is Intel
No one doubts that Intel has serious ambitions in smartphones later and tablets this year with its Atom processor. Intel’s OS horse was MeeGo, an OS partnership with Nokia. Now that Nokia is crumbling and has set its savior blessing on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, MeeGo is a bet with very high odds right now. And Windows Mobile 8 is a 2012 solution to a 2011 problem.

“Intel is actively porting and optimizing Android for Atom”, according to CEO Paul Otellini at the company’s Q1 earnings conference call. Translation: “We are hedging our bets on MeeGo with a big bet on Android”.

“In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software.” Wikipedia

My call is that the Android end-game results in a software fork of Honeycomb controlled by Intel. Intel, which already has an OS business unit, will not only make Honeycomb run on Atom, but will improve it. Moreover, Intel can support it as a business and charge ODMs appropriately. More costly than free-from-Google? Yes, but “free and not working” is worth nothing.

The tablet industry cost is that Intel is not going to do much more than hand the improvements to Honeycomb back to the open-source community. The ARM microprocessor tablet-ODMs get three Honeycomb choices: do it themselves; use Intel’s Atom-optimized stack; or continue depending on Google.

Intel is not jumping up and down about the responsibility for taking on Android (on top of MeeGo). But there is no other responsible industry home for Android with the resources and experience able to create the hardware, software, and ecosystem that’s needed to mount a serious competition to Apple’s iOS.

During that meeting, they made a comment that I believe is really the heart of Apple’s secret sauce and the cornerstone of how it continues to outsmart its competitors. They laid the iPhone on the table, with it turned off, and asked me what I saw. I told them I saw a 3.5 inch blank screen. They said that from Apples point of view, the “magic” of the iPhone is strictly in the software. And, they de-emphasized the hardware.

Yes, the iPhone was a slick smartphone with a great screen and, at the time, it broke new ground in smartphone design, and Apple was very proud of that. However, with the iPhone turned off, it had very little value. But once it was turned on, the iPhone’s OS and apps turned it into a completely different device. While it was a phone, the software made it much more—it became a vehicle for applications. It also had another component that really made it sing and dance; it was also an iPod and was tied directly to iTunes. Now it morphed into a much broader multi-purpose device. It was a phone, a vehicle for apps, and an iPod, which made it a great personal mobile entertainment system.

When Apple introduced the iPhone, it had not introduced the iOS SDK, and it gave no hint of what other type of “magic” software it had in store. But it’s now clear that Apple had gone to school on the first PC software revolution and knew that if it could create a powerful SDK and put it in the hands of creative software developers, the software developers would create a diversity of apps that would give the iPhone its real value.

And that is what has happened. Using the SDK, software developers have delivered over 250,000 iOS apps and have also created a plethora of services tied to the iPad and iPhone. Of course, Apple’s own iTunes services are the hub of Apple’s offerings, but a multitude of applications are actually front ends to outside services as well, such as Netflix, Pandora, etc.

But it is this “blank screen” mentality that is most interesting about Apple’s strategy. It literally sees software, not hardware, as its greatest value proposition and the one thing that keeps its competitors at bay. Yes, it creates great hardware. The new iPad 2 is sleek and, at the moment, the best of breed in tablet design. The iPhone also has a wonderful design that competitors try and mimic all the time. But, hardware is easily copied. Just look at the plethora of smartphones coming out these days. So many of them look like the iPhone, or try to one-up it with bigger screens and more bells and whistles.

Apple competitors delight in going head-to-head with Apple in hardware, because they can compete with them at this level. But it’s the combinations of its hardware that’s created specifically to be a vehicle for its software and the software itself that really sets Apple apart. And, there is another element to Apple’s “blank screen” strategy that adds to its competitive advantage. It makes Apple driven content a cornerstone of its extended software offerings.

For Balance of article, go to

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383661,00.asp

The good news for Android is growing smartphone market share, as illustrated by the table below, which shows Android picking up 7 market share points between November and February. These numbers provoked lurid and off target press articles such as Android Is Destroying Everyone, Especially RIM — iPhone Dead In Water.

US Smartphone Platform Share Source: Comshare

But the “Android will conquer all, including Apple” riff is just plain wrong. Android is in serious trouble at the moment. Recoverable, but still serious. The questions are whether Google knows Android is in serious trouble and whether the company chooses to get back on track to help its ecosystem partners compete with Apple?

Here are two of the publicly discussed problems that Google is having with Android:

• The tablet-optimized Android version 3, code-name Honeycomb, appeared last quarter on Motorola’s Xoom, which earned thumbs-up reviews on features but not price. Xoom sales are lousy, the OS is buggy, there are only 15 applications for it, and other Honeycomb tablet ODMs are deferring launch until the problems are sorted out. Post-earthquake cost increases and supply concerns are also playing a role here, but note that Apple is reported to be paying premiums to insure supply of key components to keep the iPad factories rolling. Android in tablets is stalled. ”The Xoom’s lesson is that the market will not accept an incomplete product and the vendors are rethinking their offerings in an effort to keep from relearning this costly lesson,” explained pundit colleague Rob Enderle. “They are increasingly frustrated with Google’s continued release of incomplete products, uncertain roadmap and unwillingness to listen to their requests for help and support.”
• Android ODMs have been modifying the open-source code of Android, especially on smartphones, in order to gain performance and feature advantages. Problem is, applications not prepared for the “enhanced” Android are prone to crash, which leaves frustrated end users and app developer support issues. Instead of rigidly controlling Android like Apple controls the iOS ecosystem, Google’s laissez faire on exactly what is Android is resulting in fragmentation of that OS.

As a result of Google’s less than production-quality rollout of Android Honeycomb, industry product innovation is slowed, demand lowered, and the whole Android tablet ecosystem is waiting with baited breath.

As a result of Google’s deliberate lack of control over Android, Android fragmentation is dimming the prospects for a cohesive, single market for Android apps. Product costs and Android stability are driving some ODMs back to Android 2.2, which was targeted at smartphones. This may allow for lower street prices for Android tablets, but it will exacerbate the fragmentation problem from smartphones into tablets.

Thus, the title of this piece: is Google the problem with Android?

I think every new Google employee is issued a card that reads “Don’t become Microsoft”, a reminder that Microsoft’s dependence on Windows and Office has not been replaced by hot, new growing businesses.

Google’s one-trick pony, of course, is search and related online ads. It is increasingly obvious that the company has literally thousands on engineers working on hundreds of next best things. Google does not want its excellent search products diluted to corporate-level mediocrity by a failure to innovate. So far, there are few contenders for another brass ring. But don’t underestimate the powerful forces within the company undertaking a “let many flowers blossom” campaign focused on inspiring next best things.

Or a rising fear of Facebook. Or the hot-poker sessions with anti-trust lawyers.

Google produces hundreds of software products. Many are in beta — forever. They are never completed. They are free for the asking. Seldom does money change hands. Are they academic-like research projects? That makes Google very unlike the traditional software product company such as Microsoft, which sell a product and gain market share based on, among other things, product stability and support. Have you ever called Google support? You can’t because they don’t provide it : “We’re happy to help you, but we don’t currently provide phone support for our free services.”

The failed Nexus One “buy your phone from Google” program last year is another example of poorly conceived product and business planning.

Google ought to care a lot about encouraging a robust ecosystem around Android. After all, Android is essentially free to the hardware ODMs in return for Google’s ability to control mobile search and ad placement. That’s a multi-billion dollar market.

But the evidence is mounting that Google is not treating Android and its ecosystem as a multi-billion dollar product business.  There is no way that Google can optimize its long-term profit stream from Android if it does not:

• Put a first-class software product QA process in place;
• Control minimum hardware specs. (Honeycomb appears to have a minimum hardware spec; it’s just not public);
• Systematically test apps before putting them in the Android store(s). Root out app malware;
• Subsidize app developers, especially those with market-leading or technology-leading. The Android app store has quantity but not much quality compared with Apple’s;
• Control the Android open-source process. Yes, the community will scream. Fine, let them burn their own ROMs on their own phones. But not for commerce. Android needs to be able to work the same across devices of the same generation. For an example of how this is controlled ruthlessly but effectively, see Oracle’s Java;
• Get on a development schedule and stick to it;
• Get a roadmap and stick to it;

Unless Google starts treating Android software and its ecosystem with more focus and professionalism, the Android brand is in real risk of becoming tarnished and fit only for low-end China smartphones.

And if Android falters in 2011, there is no other OS yet ready to carry the competitive banner against Apple. HP’s WebOS, Intel’s MeeGo, and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 8 are not ready to stand in for a failed Android.

Wake up, Google! There’s a lot more at stake for the technology industry than letting Android just serve mobile ads for Google’s search business. For Google, Android is its chance to prove it is a trustworthy technology partner — a chance it could see foreclosed for all those hundreds of technology initiatives now being created in the Googleplex.

There’s a lot of tension in board rooms around the industry wondering if Google’s kids will figure out just how important they are to a lot of other fortunes, not just their own. New CEO Larry Page’s moves to turn more over to engineers and not product people is a troubling course in the wrong direction.

Z68 combines the best features of the H67 and P67 mother-boards already in the market, and adds in a couple of new ones too. Probably for about the same price as H67 and P67 equivalents.

H67 chipsets support all Intel’s great media encoding in hardware, but can’t be overclocked. P67 chipsets support overclocking with K-series processors, but lose the media encoding capability. Z68 marries the best of P67 and H67. (Why Intel came up with P67, H67, and Z68 is a story I’m interested in hearing).

In addition, Z68 motherboards support RST SSD Caching, a feature which enables a solid state drive to be used to cache frequently-used data found on a hard drive. This will speed up boot times and application start times. Its competition is Microsoft Readyboost with a thumb flash drive and using the SSD as a boot drive with a separate data drive.

Look for motherboards that include LucidLogix’s Virtu software (which will be supported by some vendors, including Intel), and you’ll have a system that switches between integrated and discrete graphics, cutting power consumption along the way.

Expect all this in May, according to this post in techConnect.

MSI's Z68 Motherboard on Display

You must remember this: a die is just a die, as time goes by (with apologies to Herman Hupfeld)

This post initially appeared on Forbes.com April 4, 2011.

This morning, AMD gave a press conference to discuss a renegotiated wafer supply agreement with Globalfoundries, which spun off from AMD into a separate entity in March 2009 and acquired Charter Semiconductor to broaden its supply capabilities in September 2009.  Wafers are the silicon disks on which computer chips are built through deposition, etch, and other processes.  AMD is now a “fabless” (without manufacturing) semiconductor company, and Globalfoundries is its principal chip fabricator.

Although the details of the agreement are arcane, it essentially gives AMD some downside protection in the case that Globalfoundries has trouble meeting its 32nm wafer commitments.  Thomas Seifert, interim CEO, said on the call that negotiations began last year, when Globalfoundries was having difficulty reaching commercial yields on 32nm, but that as of now yields are up to snuff.

Yields are good enough, in fact, for Seifert to announce this morning that AMD’s “Llano” series is now shipping for revenue to computer makers.  Llano, is the second (and more powerful) product in AMD’s new line of “Fusion APUs” (Accelerated Processing Units).  This line combines the central processor, graphics processor, memory controller, and other functions on a single die, a more efficient design that leads to higher performance and lower power consumption.

Out of the announcement this morning, probably the most interesting item was Seifert’s note that Llano is shipping.  The rest is mostly accounting and guarantees.

*                                              *                                              *

Most of us are aware by now that there’s been a seismic shift in the computer industry.  This year, high mobility devices — principally smartphones and tablets — will surpass PCs in worldwide shipment volume.

Computers have periodically shifted to smaller form factors since the industry’s inception.  Mainframes of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to minicomputers of the 1970s, which in turn ceded their place to personal computers in the 1980s.  Although transitions up through this point have occurred about once a decade, it has taken nearly 30 years for this latest one to arrive.  A pretty good run for the PC guys.

The public is now aware that computers can go anywhere with them.  People expect computing devices to be light, small, have sufficient battery to operate for many hours, and be convenient and easy to use.

For the industry, there is the usual disruption that these things bring on, but the game remains quite interesting and is far from over.

At the software level, Apple’s domain is strong.  The company was an early leader in establishing the new category and continues to move fast to consolidate market gains and develop new products.  Google has put forth Android as its champion in the high mobility space.  Microsoft is placing its bets on Windows Phone 7.  Hewlett-Packard recently put its weight behind Palm’s webOS.  And Research in Motion is backing its own Blackberry platform.  At the moment, Apple and Google are in the leader spots, but the others are striving mightily.  Stay tuned.

In hardware, the picture is much clearer: because of the requirement for minimal power consumption, almost all highly mobile devices are being power by chips from ARM Holdings.  Intel keeps trying to position its Atom chip for this space, but the system manufacturers are not yet convinced.  Meanwhile, ARM is extending its reach from phones, its traditional space, up to tablets, the new hot product market.

This development puts a question mark over the x86 vendors’ prospects.  Sure lots of PCs will sell this year, next year, and the year after, but if the momentum is shifting over to ARM, the two principle x86 vendors may want to revisit their exclusive commitments.

Both Intel and AMD have been in the ARM endpoint business before, and both sold their holdings.  Intel sold its XScale ARM business to Marvell for $600 million in 2006, and AMD sold its handset business (which came with the ATI acquisition in 2006) to Qualcomm for $65 million in 2009.

And both could reenter.   However, reentry for AMD would be far easier than for Intel.

Intel has a huge manufacturing commitment to its own x86 architecture and a philosophical predisposition not to back an alternative.  AMD is partnered with Globalfoundries, which already has agreements with ARM licensees (e.g., Qualcomm).  With Globalfoundries making lots of ARM chips now, it could easily make some for AMD if AMD took out a license.

In this case, Intel is like a large ocean liner: turning takes a long time.  It’s not that Intel can’t switch to ARM; it’s that it most likely won’t.  In fact, Intel still has its XScale license, which it uses for its network processor line.  Intel sold a product line to Marvell, which had to acquire its own license from ARM.  But Intel has shown no sign of resurrecting an ARM endpoint business.

AMD, on the other hand, like all fabless semiconductor companies, is more nimble and can take advantage of market turns more easily if it wants.  nVidia, with its Tegra processor, represents a perfect example of a fabless semi company doubling down in short order on ARM architecture.

The x86 gang could start up ARM lines, but its unlikely in the short term.  Even with its flexibility, AMD has commitments for the next several years that are stretching its staff.  As noted earlier, Intel is the x86 champion.

However, Intel does have the capital to buy its way back into the ARM business, repugnant though that might be to the Santa Clara chip giant.  In any case, the clock is ticking as ARM rises.

© 2011 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc.  All rights reserved.

Twitter: RogerKay

Rosie knew how to make herself useful

This post initially appeared on Forbes.com April 1, 2011.

Not long ago, I was riding the United Airlines “bus” from Boston to San Francisco, one of the few remaining non-stop cross-country flights, when I chanced to have an interchange with a stewardess while in the back waiting for the bathroom to free up.

I was staring in front of me, not really focusing on anything, when my eyes lit on an old case in a rack.  The case’s business had something to do with food preparation, and the front surface of it was all covered with fine craquelure, a spider web of ancient material that had long since dried up and started to shrink and curl.

A stewardess was standing nearby, and, I have to say, she had a fair bit of craquelure herself.  I asked her when she thought United might start looking into new planes, or at least refurbing the ones already in the fleet.

Immediately, I got the smart reply: “Not before we get a raise!  We haven’t had one in ten years.”

Transportation is not my industry, but I am aware that there have been a number of nasty set-tos between various unions and management, and that pensions have been lost in some cases, diminished in others, and remained contributionless for years on end.  Salaries have been reduced or have stagnated, and the employees are none too happy.

Her outburst stayed with me for some weeks as I pondered the situation.  First off, I felt that she had done the wrong thing by venting her spleen on me, the customer.  After all, what little profit is trickling into the company is coming by way of the likes of me.  She probably shouldn’t be driving me to other airlines.

But also, that sense of entitlement, as if more money were her due, kept echoing in my brain.

Now let me establish my bona fides in the labor area.  My mother was an inner-city liberal who worked to elect union candidates, and one of my good friends was a leader in the Service Employees International.  I myself have held a number of menial jobs in a lifetime: grape picking, ship’s carpentry, grill chef, waiter, construction, farm work.  I have great respect for people who work hard, whatever their pay scale.

But most of my career has been spent in the technology industry, where there are no unions.  The story is clear: work hard, and you still may not make it.  But you might get rich.  Or you might stumble along for a decade.  You may go out of business and have to look for other work.  For every winner like Google, there are 100 losers like Webvan.com, Boo.com, and Pets.com.

No one in our trade feels they have a right to a job.  Even the concept of “job” is held as slightly suspect.  People make their own jobs by finding some way to make themselves useful to people who have money and need things done.  That’s a job.

That stewardess was just plain wrong.  Her pay was not as important as keeping up the hardware.  I don’t care about some heating cabinet, but its ancient surface reminded me that some of the flight-critical components are also likely feeling their age.  Pardon me, but in my view, my safety comes before her comfort.

Additionally, United is competing with Virgin America, which has new planes, nice lighting, a PA system that doesn’t shout at you like some Nazi commander, in-seat entertainment, Internet access, and a real-time refreshment ordering system that keeps track of inventory.  Not to mention, nice stewardesses.

Rather than grouse about her pay, she might look at figuring out a way to move on and get better work.  Her beef is with management, not the customers.

The technology industry doesn’t take particularly good care of the rank and file.  In China, laborers work in difficult conditions, building shiny devices for Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard.  In the United States, workers at all levels are “employees at will” and have no rights; they can be let go at any time, for cause or not for cause.

But these Darwinian rules do keep the industry sharp, and, overall, technology creates a huge amount of wealth, some of which goes to the government, some to the workers, and a chunk to management.  On occasion, big piles end up in the owners’ pockets.

Because of my background, dividing the baby is hard on this one, but I come down on the side of open shop.  Workers have to take more responsibility for keeping up their skills and relevance to the economy.

As my grandfather the lawyer said when asked by his Mafia clients whether he could guarantee a judge’s verdict, “What guarantees did you get when you were born”?

© 2011 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc.  All rights reserved.

Twitter: RogerKay