Intel brings Android to the Atom processor

By on Apr 13, 2010 at 12:46 PM
mobile April 13, 2010

intel-atom-logo

Folks hoping for an Atom-powered Android smartphone have reason to rejoice, as Intel’s GM of software and services announced that not only has the chipmaking giant modified the open-source platform to play nice with its x86-based processors, but it already has customers interested in using the unique OS-chipset combination. While no further details were divulged, the same executive also mentioned the company is hard at work getting “enabling all OSes for Atom phones.” When Google first designed the Android platform it did so with ARM-based processors in mind, but now that people have a taste for high-powered processors like the 1GHz Snapdragon from Qualcomm, companies such as Intel are scrambling to get their processors compatible with a multitude of operating systems. Can you imagine a phone like the HTC EVO will full Adobe Flash compatibility running a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450? Yes, our hearts would melt, too.

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  • david sommers

    Perfect for an android tablet with Nvidia Ion please!!

  • (The real Jarrett) Jarrett

    Maybe for a tablet. For a phone though, the only that might be melting is the device.

  • thenegroid

    I have just soiled myself ever so gently.

  • DubYa

    What is the point of this powerful of a processor in a smartphone? If a tablet can’t replace a computer, how do you expect a smartphone to replace a computer or even a tablet?

    I’m all for increased specs, but this just won’t work. The battery would be dead in 10 minutes.

    • PowerCell

      On-the-fly language translation… you speak English, the user on the other end hears Manderin… amazing shit.

      • StevenGlansburg

        yeah, since there is such a huge demand for english to manderin translation

      • Rusty Shackleford

        Wow…smirking irony from SG. fail

      • T

        Perhaps you don’t understand what country speaks Mandarin… I’ll give you a hint, it has the letters c, h, i, n and a in its name and the language has over 1 billion speakers. So yeah… there is a huge market for something such as English Mandarin translation….

    • DrPepper

      You can buy a battery for $10 on ebay and change it in ten seconds yourself, unless you have an apple. Then you can send it away for 2 weeks and pay $70 and they will change it for you.

  • Dara

    Freedom to do what you want with your hardware is great.

    Intel is really impressing me recently. They seem to be making some very good (open) decisions with their hardware roadmaps.

    I’m still going to buy a Black Edition Phenom II for my next computer, but I might consider an Atom for my next phone ….

    Just as long as it’s Nokia N series hardware and I can triple boot Android with Symbian 4 and Meego.

  • random

    Surely it’s not difficult to “port” Android to an architecture that a million Linux distributions have been running on since day 1?

  • Andriod Sucks Balls

    Yawn…

  • Eric

    We need battery technology to keep up with processor technology. That has been, and is going to continue to be, a problem. It is the same problem that has been plaguing hybrid cars.

    • StevenGlansburg

      +10,0000000 reps points

      These 1 ghz + processors are great and all, but if you heavily use all of the features of the droid, hero, mytouch, or iphone your battery life will only last half a day or so.

      I don’t know about any of you, but carrying a charger around everywhere sucks and simply buying a spare battery isn’t always as cheap or easy of a solution.

    • Dara

      Processor technology is already on a pretty good trend towards energy efficiency.

      What we really need are asymmetric multicore processors with something like Nvidia’s Optimus tech to make some of them “disappear” as far as the battery is concerned when not in use.

      Imagine if your phone idled with a 200 MHz core handling all your phone and background functionality, kicked in a 100 MHz graphics core when you turned on the screen to navigate menus or check messages, and had a gigahertz worth of combined GPU/CPU cores ready to go for extra graphical or high CPU apps.

      I think both Nvidia and AMD are working towards that kind of architecture, but it will be a while before it’s portable or cheap. The most likely starting point will be something like the PowerPC/Cell architecture in the PS3.

      • HA!

        Geeky girls turn me on. I am slobbering like a lab puppy eating ice cream.

  • Danny

    I hope Intel gets a move on, Gizmodo had a article a while back showing that Qualacomm could have 1.5 Ghz CPU out by mid year this year, and dual core out by the end of 2010 http://gizmodo.com/5443976/qualcomms-dual+core-15ghz-snapdragon-smartphones-are-about-to-go-hyperspeed

  • Amitya

    i cant wait until nvidia goes in on mobile gpu chipsets haha

  • justin

    this makes my day! woot

  • GadgetQueen

    Can you imagine a phone like the HTC EVO will full Adobe Flash compatibility running a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450?

    Throw in a nanotube battery, LTE and Verizon as the carrier and I promise I won’t look at another phone ever… well for at least a year… or maybe 6 months… definitely at least 30 days!

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