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ARM spurs chip debate

Ephraim Schwartz, Information Age

19/04/2002 17:13:07

ARM spurs chip debate

Fuelled by individual modifications to ARM's chip set, Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments are campaigning to convince developers and users of the advantages expected from a raft of new handheld devices that will contain their chips.

Each of the microprocessor makers has secured OEM deals with a variety of handheld vendors widely expected to deliver new products by the end of Q2.

For example, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Ericsson are expected to include TI's OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) processor in a combined voice and data device. Sources also report that Hitachi and Toshiba are expected to release devices that include Intel's XScale processor.

Reduced power consumption and higher processing speeds top the list of competing features, but the central ARM core is proving to be the great equaliser for developers looking to develop applications for a variety of devices.

According to one ISV, devices such as Palm, Research In Motion (RIM) Blackberry, Pocket PCs, and mobile phones that contain the ARM core are capable of running a single J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition)-based development platform.

"There's a lot of difficulty having a unified app development strategy across mobile applications. We are waiting for ARM so that on top of ARM, the handhelds can run J2ME environment," said Hemant Taneja, senior vice president at JP Mobile.

"When we go to a client, and the client wants us to build an SFA (sales-force automation) application, but they want it to run on three devices, it is very expensive, and it may not be a good business for us," Taneja said.

Although Taneja sees the benefit of a unified platform, the chip vendors still see the debate in terms of more classic arguments, such as speed measured in megahertz.

Intel's XScale offers manufacturers peak performance of 400MHz, whereas Texas Instruments OMAP 1510 processor -- part of the OMAP family of chips -- runs at 200MHz, as does Motorola's MX1, part of its Rollerball chip family.

According to TI's US wireless marketing manager Stephan Bork, buyers are also looking to evaluate handheld devices according to MIPs (millions of instructions per second) to gauge such things as performance and power consumption.

TI's OMAP 1510, for example, integrates its DSP (digital signal processor) running at 200MHz, with the ARM core, running at 175MHz. According to Bork, a DSP executes almost twice as many instructions in one cycle as an application processor giving its dual-core solution, 400 MIPs for the DSP plus 175 MIPs for the ARM, for a total of 575 MIPS.

Peter Green, general manager of Intel's handheld computing division, said that due to changes in the architecture, the 400MHz XScale will give users 480 MIPS, 1.2 MIPS per megahertz.

But until broadband wireless access -- 2.5G and 3G wireless data -- becomes ubiquitous, performance on the handheld will probably take a back seat in importance to battery life.

Another element of the debate is Intel's Dynamic Voltage management design which can change the voltage applied to the device within one cycle, according to Intel's Green.

But a Motorola chip specialist counters. "In terms of silicon, it is all about semi-conductor technology leakage current," said Kyle Harper, market and business development manager of the handheld division at Motorola.

"No matter what Intel does to regulate performance, it is the top-end speed that dictates what the leakage current or current drain is," Harper added, noting that battery life even in standby mode is dominated by leakage current.

"XScale's sleep uses minimum power and has no current drain," Green said.

System integration rather than performance is the biggest determiner of battery life, said Felix Lin, president of AvantGo, an independent software vendor in the handheld space.

For example, a Compaq iPaq with built in 802.11 will drain far less battery power than an external 802.11 card, Lin said.

"As soon as you go to an external connect you are pushing through more copper and this is a critical factor in determining power usage," Lin said.

All three chip manufacturers are addressing this concern with what's called "system on a chip" -- a method of integrating more components inside a single processor.

Both TI and Motorola claim they get the performance, power consumption and lower price by using system on a chip that includes everything from the DSP on TI's chip to Motorola's use of multimedia accelerators plus Bluetooth, 802.11, USB, and flash memory all on the main processor.

Intel does not include Bluetooth or 802.11 on the chip in its current version.

Despite the debate, analysts and industry executives reiterate the fact that the core enabler remains ARM technology.

In fact, 80 per cent of the core processor feature sets are the same, said Gerry Purdy, president of Mobile Insights.

"The CPU will not matter to developers or users as long as it is ARM-based. It will be the superset that makes the difference," Purdy said.

Then there are the restrictions imposed by licensing. "They can re-implement the microprocessor design as long as they are instruction-set compliant," said Jerry Ardizzone, VP of worldwide sales at ARM.

Meanwhile, the industry is watching Microsoft after it announced at the recent Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco that its next handheld OS, WinCE.net, was customised for Intel processors. But Microsoft also works with TI and Motorola.