Thursday, August 14, 2008

Atom - Intel's Money Machine

Amazing. Chipmaker Intel’s money machine is at work like there’s no tomorrow.

Although purchases of some computing products have slowed, Intel created a whole new chip – The Atom Processor– for the masses. The Atom fits in perfect for smaller netbooks like the ASUS EEE, MID devices and cellphones?

Quote – “Intel calls Atom a "perfect recession product"”.

The performance and battery life on the Atom is like no other.

Just a few years ago, AMD was moving towards the top of the game. They had great processors for desktops. However, AMD could never figure out a solution for the heat problems that affected the processors. The failure rate was just too high.

AMD’s next problem was the absence of a processor for laptops. Computing has been moving towards mobile. AMD had nothing to beat Intel’s Centrino technology.

Even today, laptops with the AMD processor are plagued with heat problems. Heat leads to fatigue and failure. High temperatures can kill electronics.

After Intel released the Core 2 Duo, AMD’s fate was sealed for failure.

Intel continues to focus on Mobile.

- Processors that run faster
- Processors that consume less power
- Processors that produce less heat
- Chipsets integrated and packed with everything - from graphics to WiFi to 3G
- Integration does away with external dongles
- USB 3.0

I am on an Intel Core 2 Duo laptop and this thing flies.

Looking forward to in the (near future?) where cellphones and car computing are all powered by Intel's latest, fastest and greatest chips!


INTEL's STOCK PERFORMANCE - LAST 5 YEARS



AMD's STOCK PERFORMANCE - LAST 5 YEARS



References:

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=INTC#chart3:symbol=intc;range=20030902,20080813;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AMD#chart1:symbol=amd;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined