I'm looking forward to my next PC build - an ION-based HTPC. I purchased from Amazon a ZOTEC ITX 330 ION motherboard with the dual-core Atom processor and an ITX case from AOpen. I plan to migrate my old HTPC in a much bigger Antec case into the small form-factor design.

A couple of issue remain - the AOpen case supports only one 2.5in hard drive and the old HTPC has a 3.5in HD. I'll have to buy a new notebook HD and migrate the OS. The other issue is that the AOpen case doesn't have space for an optical drive. Most of the ITX cases only support the slim optical drives. The existing HTPC uses a full sized dual HD format (BluRay and HD-DVD) from LG. The AOpen case offers a stacked option for a drive, but it's also for the slim drive and I can't find an online source that sells the stack anyway. So my option seems to be to use the optical drive in an external case. I' thinking using the XBox360 HD-DVD drive I have and replacing the drive with the dual-format drive. Not as elegant though.

I'll be posting pictures as the project gets going - hopefully this weekend.

On another note, I want to clarify my previous post. My posts on x86 and ARM are based on conversations I've had with former collegues from Microprocessor Report and are not based on any conversations at NVIDIA.

in a follow-up conversation with a colleague, I had a deeper discussion on the evolution of x86 cores and may modify my stance on its applicability to ultramobile devices. The problem I think an x86 faces is expectations, not capabilities. An x86 in a handset would run at 1GHz at best, which is perceived as slow in the PC space. The operating system would have to be optimized for efficiency and power, not just the silicon. The processor would still have to be very stripped down, and highly optimized for micropower management.


So it's possible, but not easy.

Last week, my friend and former colleague at Microprocessor Report Peter Glaskowsky, posted to his blog on CNet responding to a GigaOm story by Stacey Higginbotham. Peter called a post x86 world "preposterous." I disagree with Peter and here's what I posted:
I have to disagree. In order for Intel and x86 to be successful in the smartphone market, there needs to be a reasonable need to run the PC operating system and programs on a 3 inch screen. Otherwise, x86 compatibility is meaningless in a market where ARM-based mobile operating systems already dominate. The x86 instruction set and traditional Windows has no inherent advantage in the smartphone market. Apple has shown that a mobile operating system, even one based on a desktop core, needs a different user interface and application design.

To Peter’s point that instruction sets are not relevant, why must x86 win in the end? There are only three x86 vendors and only one of those is both financially healthy and shipping significant volume. While there are a few hundred million x86 processor shipped every year, there are many hundreds of millions of ARM-based designs in cell phone, microcontrollers, and the like shipped every year (over 10 billion since 1990) from many different companies, large and small, and in between. ARM is not some obscure processor, and it is used by many innovative companies (according to ARM, 60 partner companies were at MWC'09 http://www.arm.com/news/24583.html). For Intel (or AMD for that matter) to take x86 into cell phones is proof that if your only (successful) tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Intel’s agreement with TSMC to offer an Atom-based (Intel’s lowest end, lowest power x86 core) hard core for SoC design is Intel’s recognition that it needs to tap into the ARM ecosystem. The same ecosystem it failed to win over with XScale. Details of the agreement are still meager, but I’m concerned because it allows Intel to vet who and what will use the Atom core. That is not open enough for true innovation and competition.


In a related story, CNet’s Brook Cruthers asked if anyone would buy an Intel Smartphone:

But he didn't address battery life. There is no free lunch – more performance will use more energy. For an x86 processor to meet or beat an ARM-based SoC, it will require an extreme measure of very fine-grained power management. One of the power penalties of x86 is that the instruction decoder is complex with many special case conditions (in comparison to ARM) and increased complexity often translates into increased power.

Netbooks or mini-notebooks, no matter the name you call them, they are the hottest topic in the PC market. My company finally jumped into the fray with the ION platform which combines the very low power Atom processor with our very capable 9400 chipset. This is a very capably platform that would only get better when Intel releases a dual-core Atom processor. The aging 945 chipset from Intel is an anchor on the speedy little Atom processor.

From what I've gathered so far, the appeal of mini-notes is the combination of low price (about the cost of an iPOD touch, which makes you wonder about how high Apple's margins must be), connectivity (WiFi), battery life, and portability (small size and light weight).

The first version of the mini-notes, exemplified by the ASUS Eee PC, where an odd hot with Linux running on underclocked Celeron processors (the so-called 900MHz Celeron was underclocked to ~630MHz), small 7" displays and crammed keyboards. Still there was something attactive about a sub-$400 notebook you could take anywhere in a small bag (not quite pocketable). As the catagory has evolved the keyboards are bigger, the displays are bigger, and added more mainstream WinXP operating systems.

After shipping about 10 million units in 2008, the estimates for 2009 are up to 35 million units. On one hand, this is an opportunity to expand the markets for PCs by inproving the portability, but it's also a chance to crush the system prices to bargain basement levels. We might find that these PC's become as disposable as cell phones with a shortened life span. PC life spans had been increasing, but Netbooks could lower it again. So the margins aren't great, but the shorter replacement cycle could be a good thing for PC OEMs.

At least this economic recession has had one benefit - it has flushed out a number of financial cheats and scoundrels. The greedy have been found out and in many cases dealt with. Companies that used financial tricks have run out of options. Companies are going to have to make money the old fashioned way - by creating something of value. I've never understood a system that rewards people for moving money around without creating any real value. But that's just the engineer in me.

As the agony of AMD's spiral down continues, it couldn't have helped when the San Jose Mercury columnist Chris O'Brien put AMD on his list of companies that are in serious trouble. http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_11200791?nclick_check=1

Why did AMD fail to sustain its success after its triumph over Intel with Opteron and Athlon 64?

First off, AMD underestimated Intel's ability to rebound from the Pentium 4/Tejas debacle. Intel is a very resilient competitor with a lot of resources and a process and manufacturing group second to none. Intel, to some extend, was also lucky. It had a very sharp team in Israel that was working on lower power processors that could be enhanced for more performance. And so Conroe (Core 2 Duo) was born and the start of the long slide down for AMD.

AMD's management conceived of a grand idea of merging the raw performance of GPUs with the general purpose CPU (Fusion). It's an elegant and exciting concept. It was design to put AMD back ahead of Intel. The problem was that AMD grossly overpaid for the number 2 GPU vendor, ATI, and AMD's execution of the Fusion development concept has been slow and painful with a number of canceled versions.

Meanwhile, Intel has embarked on it's own GPU and its own version of Fusion. Right now, it looks like Intel might have a Fusion part in the market ahead of AMD. This was clearly a project that AMD could manage with too many new teams trying to work together. It just hasn't jelled.

So, AMD struggles to keep afloat by selling off anything it can. The latest part of the company to be jettisoned is the fabs. Before that it was Legarity, Spansion, Alchemy, and its PLD division.

Frankly, I think AMD's given up competing with Intel. AMD will try to hold onto enough market share to keep in business, but right now, there's very little upside until 2010 or 2011 when 32nm Bulldozer-based cores hit the market. No, instead, AMD management is going to try to eek out some minimal self respect by taking on NVIDIA as much as possible. But we're as resourceful and has adaptable as Intel. So I see no
opportunity there. And, afterall, ATI was rarely very profitable, so even a healthy ATI can't hold up a sick CPU business.

There a re a lot of companies that don't want AMD to go out of business, but at the same time, I don't see these companies digging into their own pockets to save AMD.

I listened to parts of AMD's Financial Analyst Day (gotta keep up with our competitors). First off, I have to say Rick Bergman's attempt to get a majority share of the graphics business by lumping in consoles was lame to the nth degree. Neither ATI nor NVIDIA controls or drives the sales of consoles. Also, those are contract designs from years ago that aren't even competitive with today's parts.

Other than that, as a former AMDer, I found Dirk's pitch on AMD's reason to play in the market, well uninspiring. It came down to: well the market needs an alternative to Intel, it might as well be us. How inspiring it is to say you're tired of losing money, or your soon to ex-CFO saying there was finally a change to cash flow positive for the first time under his watch. The message was not about leadership, but about competence. AMD wants to be a competent x86 microprocessor supplier. Good for them, I guess. The days of talking about 30% market share and kicking Intel's butt are over.

I guess the only sign of competitive juices is their competition with NVIDIA. They caught NVIDIA flat footed with an unconventional strategy. Remember how that played out with Intel? First AMD got the upper hand on Intel with Athlon64/Opteron, then got cocky, didn't bring anything new, and then got creamed by Conroe. It could happen again. AMD has not been able to sustain leadership - it moves in short spurts of real innovation, followed by years of mediocrity. I think AMD lost of some of the engineers willing to take risks - it became a customer driven company and lost the ability to inspire passion.

I was reading AMD's Pat Moorehead's blog post on mini-notebooks (Netbooks in Intel-speak; research companies are using the mini-notebook name). Pat's become Mr. Gadget for AMD, which is funny considering AMD is not really in the gadget business.

Back to mini-notes - Pat divides the use model into two types: at home and away from home. Pat's ideal "at-home" mini-note is really just a small notebook like a MacBook Air. The "away-from-home" mini-note is also overkill. I kinda agree with the 1024x768 display, but actually I'd like 1280x768 like my dear departed Crusoe-based Fujitsu P2110 (I still have the parts; I tried to figure out why it died, but couldn't diagnose the reason it wouldn't power up for more than a second or two). I like having a solid state drive because it make the mini-note more rugged to use - like a remote control or a handheld game console. If the content is going to be stored in the cloud or my home network storage - I don't need a large drive. I would like the same amount as an iPOD Touch - 16-32GB. To get to the aggressive price point- there are compromises that must be made. But it clear that consumers won't pay a premium for small size.

Looking over at my gadget collection, you can see that I own the original ASUS Eee PC 701 with the Linux OS and have used it. It's just to difficult to use on a regular basis. I'm planning to keep our wine list on it and it's still useful for casual browsing or chat.

I'm holding out for a mini-note with NVIDIA graphics :-)

On the eve of AMD's Financial Analyst Day, did anyone find it odd that Intel decided to release its lower guidance? If that doesn't scare the bejesus out of the financial analysts, I don't know what will. That's just plain mean (of Intel).