Intel's Atom A Revolutionary Split

Will The World’s Smallest Processor Become A Huge Hit?

Jun 11, 2009

In technology, timing is everything. And the new Atom processor, Intel,'s latest product release, proves the company has the concept down to a science.

The middle of an economic downturn may not seem to be the best time to launch a new product, however Atom, Intel's newest processor, doesn't signify the norm. What’s so special? Atom represents, for the first time in years, an entirely new architecture, which is both economical in cost and economical in power consumption.

Atom's Revolutionary Architecture Yields Small Size & Low Power Consumption

According to Intel, the Atom 45nm processor is the company’s smallest and is built with the world’s smallest transistors-47 million of them in all-on a single chip that measures less than 26mm2. To put this in perspective, according to the Computer History Museum, Intel’s first microprocessor, the Intel 4004 released in 1971, housed just 2300 transistors and measured 12mm2.

If that isn’t impressive enough, Atom is also designed for low power consumption without a loss of performance. The chip boasts a power specification of “less than 1W to 2.5 watts for mobile devices,” but maintains “full Intel Core microarchitecture instruction set compatibility. Atom also features multiple threads for better performance and increased system responsiveness.”

This may very well be where Atom’s real value lies. Most smart devices don’t need the processing power to edit video or perform photo manipulation. They simply need to surf the Web, take pictures, send and receive email and open up attachments. With Atom, these devices can do all of this without draining the battery. Add in Atom’s ability to deliver the entire Web experience, including Flash media, and its small size and you have what Fastcompany.com is calling “the seeds of a revolution in mobile technology.”

Atom's Size, Low Cost Drive New, Smaller Mobile Internet Devices

As important as what Atom is, is what it isn’t. Atom isn’t Intel’s fastest or most powerful chip. In fact it represents a departure from the processor wars waged between Intel and AMD over the past few decades. This departure wasn’t without challenges, especially considering that the project began in 2004, when the hand-held market was just emerging. Siphoning off billions of dollars and dedicating hundreds of engineers over the course of four years for a ground up design was a much harder sell than improving on the existing product line.

If early indications are accurate, it appears to be paying off. In addition to enabling the latest Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), a new category of netbooks and nettops powered by Atom are surfacing on Amazon.com. Atom-powered servers are available through a number of online stores and Google has more than 26 million pages relating to Atom.

But the best may be yet to come. Atom’s size, performance and power consumption will likely make mobile devices more broad ranged and also smaller. According to Intel Executive Vice President Sean Maloney, “This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry."

Sources: Intel website <http://www.intel.com/technology/atom/index.htm>, Fastcompany.com, "Intel Atom: Intel Makes Its Smallest Chip Ever," 9/18/2008, <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/reinventing-the-atom.html>.

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