Merrifield is actually shipping in tablets today, from Dell.

This is the very last Intel graphics, Intel processor, Intel everything mobile non-integrated chipset that will ever be produced and it will only run for a couple of months before Intel begins production on ARM based products through a partner (with just enough Intel intellectual property in the main processor cores to justify calling it Intel at all).

Beyond this point "Intel" becomes just a brand name in mobile, running on somebody else's production process using designs that somebody else put together.   The main cores may actually have some Intel intellectual property in them, but it will have to be tweeked by the somebody else to interface with the main mass of ARM componentry that the somebody else is currently using.

Becoming a name brand means over-labeling somebody else's product and selling it at a marked up price in your home market.

HP has become a name brand now for their low end laptops and tablets, and it isn't very hard to figure out which Chinese company actually designed and built what arm based stuff HP is currently peddling.

Beyond this point discussing what Intel is doing or Intel is producing isn't going to be really meaningful for very much, since Intel isn't going to be doing or producing their own stuff any more, past these two very last Merrifield tablet processors.

Needless to say, Intel is really really really done with x86 in mobile since they and AMD were the only ones doing x86 and AMD quit doing x86 in mobile well over a year ago.  

Intel is now best considered as a ARM licensed "custom core" producer akin to Qualcomm (but not nearly as good at it as Qualcomm is).

So, x86 as a mobile processor type is in essence is dead too.

14nm is set to roll soon, and when it does remember that Intel may continue to make some noise occasionally, but none of it is real.


Intel as a producer of unique self-designed and self-built mobile chipsets is no more past this last Merrifield foray as is being done by Dell.

http://liliputing.com/2014/06/dell-inspiron-20-one-desktop-essentially-big-wi...

The desktop of the future arrives today !!!!



This is new from Dell, a 20" touchscreen unit that can be bought with either Windows or Ubuntu installed from the factory.

Look Sero, no cables at all .....   wifi and bluetooth all the way.

And yes, it has a battery inside it and is "portable" in the sense you can freely move it from room to room without losing what you are currently doing.

And Intel is still pushing fresh clouds of vapor at Comdex .....

They did a keynote address today and showed people a huge tablet that was thin as a greeting card and could do more than today's laptop, supposedly.



Of course, it is vapor, the tablet was a non-functional show and tell that just displays some set pictures.   But the fact Intel is still getting keynote slots means that they still have enough clout to get them.  (MS was nowhere to be seen).

Keynotes are all about the desired future and nobody executes future vapor and slides better than Intel .....

What if Intel pulls it off?   I know right now it seems they can't do much right right now and are blowing money out of their butts just to be in the game at all, and this thing with Rockchip sure smacks of desperation as their current move and all.

But what if .... 14nm is small and tight enough to enable the existing crop of Intel cludges to actually MOVE fast enough and be finally battery life sound?

What if Rockchip can teach Intel how to integrate a system on a chip?

Got some big maybes there -- and they predicate on ARM sitting still or agreeing to move at a slow Intel pace while Intel goes about doing it.

This isn't going to happen.

Intel will not be the first one to go 14nm,   Apple is already in production on the 14nm 64 bit quad core A9 as we speak, Qualcomm will get there second very closely followed by Samsung (who is making Apple's A9 chip now) -- followed by MediaTek and Allwinner at about the same time Intel goes.  

You have got to realize that these 14nm production lines belong to the major developing foundries, not to Intel.  And the foundries have a pecking order for new tech based on customer volume.

Intel is currently #6 in tablets, way way back in the pack.   Even if the Rockchip thing was monolithic solid, they would only be #4.    The major ARM Foundries see Intel primarily as a competitor, not as a "preferred" customer.

Yes, Intel did buy themselves a 14nm line, yes, way way back early on using a tech that didn't work out -- burned/melted it up and yes, have probably had the time to get it fixed back up by now to maybe working right again -- but to say that Intel is simply going to die shrink their existing stuff and suddenly be "world dominating" is BS.

Their designs are NOT world beating now, what will make them world beating when they shrink to 50% size when the rest of the world is at 50% size swinging better, MUCH tighter designs?

Deep pockets have kept Intel in the game this long, and until Intel's board of directors gives up on the huge negative spending Intel will fling lots of money and lots of fresh vapor and keep on floundering along.

In the past two weeks Intel has threatened to horn in on some ARM turn key proprietary designs, suborned Rockchip, and is now threatening Qualcomm and Samsung with one upmanship.   All the while firing lots & lots of vapor bullets.

ARM doesn't own any vapor bullets, nor does Qualcomm.   Samsung has been stung by merely being premature in the past, so I doubt they will say much until they really go do it either.

Rockchip and Intel might well constitute some good comedy to watch (Laurell and Hardy type) but the next wave of ARM 64 bit releases will be what Intel should be paying close attention to.

Accurate return rifle fire is a rock hard bitche ...   and this doesn't feel like a friendly football game any more since Intel took to suborning players and swiping up chunks of turn-key ARM designs.

Yeah, I know, Intel paid for licenses so it is all legal and all -- still ARM isn't going to love them for swiping their linemen, specifically the one who was tasked with blocking off Intel's current runner.

And Rockchip may have done themselves in for cooperating with this swipeage after having agreed to be the Intel blocker last year.  

Chipzilla got on the stage today and again promised to ship 40 million tablet chipsets in 2014 and to be featured in at least 120 different tablets by the end of the year.

This is 34 million more than they sold last year.    6.6 times as many chipsets than they sold last year.  Discounting Apple's share of last year, this is MORE CHIPSETS than all of everybody else other than Apple sold last year.

Simple tricks, like paying Rockchip to put Intel's name stenciled on the top of their chip production allocation may help Chipzilla meet these goals.   Even so, it is a bridge too far even for vapor ware in 2014.

Oh, Intel finally figured out a catchy name for the great big thin vapor tablet they flashed at the show.

Llama Mountain           (They wanted to call it  Shangri La,   but it sounded too imaginary.   The Ultra Book of tablets .....)

There is no doubt that Intel could possibly make a lot of these things given a year or so, but not at the prices they need to make them in order to compete well against the next wave of ARM chipsets.

Intel must really really work very very hard to get their prices down, and that means making Intel into a smaller, leaner company.

I do like the heightened level of innovation that is showing up out of the vendors though.    There is a veritable explosion of new stuff coming out.  

I like the clean look of the new Bluetooth and Wifi standards that are going to supplant all cables other than a single power cable.

Intel must be mindful that they are in violation of USA and Chinese law when trying to control a market by selling stuff way way way under cost.   It is called dumping.   Eventually, some Chinese companies who are being hurt will complain to their government and it will be stopped.

Intel has a habit of this sort of behavior, and has lost  "price dumping" suits in the past in the USA (1.3 billion to AMD) for the same sorts of behaviors.

Since they are very publicly admitting to this current massive loss leader pricing does it become a function of just who wants to cash in first by suing them first?

Well, it it 2:30 am and I woke up -- it happens sometimes when you are old.

Nursing my first cup of coffee, I checked my blood sugar  -- 75, most excellent control, love my new Novolin 70/30 from Relion (Walmart brand insulin, no prescription required).   I like it for costing LESS than my deductible on my old insulins and for it being a singularly effective drug -- I take just 15 units once a day instead of 20, 15 & 15 of two other insulins I used to take.

Now I am mostly awake, and somewhat reflective.

Intel will make it.   Intel will MAKE it work.   They may never lead the industry again as a just about total monopoly, but they will remain in the industry as an active participant and they will keep everybody else up on their toes while they go about doing their surviving thing.

Intel is totally RELENTLESS in pursuit of a goal.   Always has been.   Unless they manage to piss off the Chinese government in doing so, they will buy themselves enough time (using their savings and entire profit margin if needs be) to manage to learn how to be an integrated ARM SOC supplier and they will eventually manage to get into phone and wearables, eventually.

Intel copies good ideas and incorporates them.   ARM most likely should not have allowed Intel to legally copy their current designs, but that is how ARM always has been and will be.   ARM sells you a design license, you can do what you want to with what you have bought.  Intel needs to learn how to be a better open source contributor, but I really can't throw any rocks at their efforts so far, they DO contribute and they DO cooperate with FOSS projects.  

Just with a whole boatload of "we run the world" PC arrogance that is no longer justified.

Paying Chinese firms to build their chips temporarily is really a cost savings mechanism for Intel to stretch the old "PC money bank" accounts until Intel can actually re-do their automated chip lines down to 14nm and 10nm (lines which are situated all over the world, which is also good for good cost & monetary exchange rates).

Intel is courting a deeper danger though, they are distributing their key intellectual property all over the place, into places that do not respect patents and copyright and previous agreements all that much.  Unless Intel can constantly REPLACE that IP with some new better more desirable IP they will cut their own throat in the long run.  

Example, Rockchip -- do you think Rockchip is really going to limit themselves to just what Intel wants them to do, or will they use the tech they are given later on in a myriad of different ways?   And transfer it to others as well as they copy Rockchip's tech?    Rockchip's vendors will all know how it works too, you know.

ARM is going to have to keep on innovating wave after wave to keep ahead of Intel.  Intel is going to have to keep humping just to keep up and to try to get ahead.   Qualcomm is going to eventually lose their current position as fastest CPU chipset, but they will never lose the advantage of the best integrated, lowest cost to make a motherboard (or a product).   Not unless the rest of the guys can build their video processors and radios and everything else right on the main chipset like Qualcomm can.  

Apple, Apple can only remain first in mobile if they keep on spending an increasing amount of effort and money to do so.  Lately, innovation at Apple has been faltering.   Right now they are in a position where Samsung 1) makes both their A8 and A9 chipsets for them and 2) Samsung competes strongly with them on finished products.   Not a good place to be.  Apple is losing their edge and has just had to copy eight (8) key features from Android this time around because their loyalists DEMANDED these neat new Android features.   Apple is falling behind.

Android itself is fragmenting.   Google has lost control of the majority of the HUGE Android pie world-wide (Android forks now outmass the pure Google Android by 2:1 and this ratio keeps going up).   The Chinese government and Google do not get along at all, and because of this Google will not grow along with the new mobile world the way it could have if Google hadn't been so anti-government control, anti-snooping, etc. etc.

Samsung is pushing their own Tizen OS now, something Intel and Samsung cooked up out of the ghost of MeMo.   Intel is also working with Samsung on a new generation of super resolution monitors (way past retina levels) just so Intel's chipsets will have some sort of real claimable (actually real) advantage over ARM.   This advantage will be VERY short lived if the monitors are actually put out on the market and if they will move at all at the extremely high price they currently selling for.   VR and Mali will see to that.

ARM as an organization will functionally move to the orient and be come a Chinese local based support enterprise.   This is where they need to be.  Linaro will do the same thing.   Firefox is already co-based in Beijing, just look to see them deemphasize the US offices more and more as time goes on.

The next waves of miniaturization in automated manufacturing are going to result in Containerized Automated Manufacturing Lines that can product a product anywhere in the world at essentially the same-same low automated manufacturing cost.   Provide water, power and parts and she'll kick them on out for you.

Expect production to move around even more quickly to take advantage of government incentives and low general costs.    Parts suppliers will have to be able to move around along with this gypsy flow pattern.

The current level of fast change isn't going to stop, it is the way things are now-a-days.