Intel is all set for the latest edition of its Intel Developer Forum (IDF), a gathering of its partners and developers that constitute the Intel ecosystem. The event starts today in earnest in San Francisco.
The event comes at a time when the world’s largest chip company is facing a harsh reality –- PCs, as we know it, are no longer the center of the technology world. They are slowly and finally being pushed aside by a new generation of devices –- smartphones, tablets and other media gadgets.
The emergence of always on wireless networks, the growing popularity of touch as a way to interact with computing devices and rise of the mobile cloud (a trend we are exploring at our upcoming conference, Mobilize 2010 has shifted the focus away from what has been Intel’s personal goldmine – the personal computer.
Perhaps that is why this week the company will likely launch one of its most crucial new chip architecture, Sandbridge and new members of its Atom line of microprocessors . The company is going to showcase how its chips are being used inside non-PC devices such as smart televisions. It will also be showing off a new generation of tablets that are powered by the new Atom chips.
Intel’s event is coming at a time when the company is facing renewed competition from the ARM-ecosystem, which includes Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments amongst others. ARM, last week had introduced a new Cortex-A15 chip architecture that will allow chipmakers to build quad-core chips running at 2.5 GHz by being on a power diet. ARM has emerged as the biggest danger for Intel in recent years.
What to expect at IDF 2010:
* Sandbridge, a New Microprocessor Architecture: According to the chip industry’s publication, EETimes, Intel is going to share details of a new 32-nanometer microprocessor architecture nicknamed Sandy Bridge, which succeeds the Nehalem architecture. Intel is gong to be using this architecture which merges x86 cores and graphics in a single die, will be used for next two years and will make it the centerpiece of a wide variety of chips that are a lot more power efficient and might result in a PC upgrade cycle, according to Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.
* USB & PCI Express 3.0 may make their debut next week.
* Details of Groveland, an Atom-based system-on-chip that are targeted the set-top boxes.
* Expect details on Intel’s Infineon Wireless Business acquisition and more on how Intel plans to incorporate McAfee’s technology in its core offerings.
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