Intel’s new mobile platform

Intel unveiled a smartphone chip – dubbed “Medfield” – at CES 2012 designed to compete with NVIDIA’s Tegra System on a Chip (SoC).

At CES Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini, showed off the Lenovo K800 smartphone which is powered by Intel’s new Medfield chip and runs the Android OS.

Intel’s new mobile platform has been built in conjunction with Motorola Mobility.

“It is a multi-year, multi-product strategy that will bring both phones and tablets to the (US) marketplace starting with a phone in the second half of 2012,” Dave Whalen, a vice-president in the Intel Architecture Group, said of the alliance with Motorola.

Sanjay Jha, the chief executive of Motorola Mobility, said the company would work with Intel on a “multi-year, multi-device” collaboration.

The Medfield chip powering the K800 clocks in at 1.6GHz, and is similar to the Atom Z2460 architecture. According to stats published by VR-Zone, the chip scores around 10,500 in Caffeinemark 3 whilst the NVIDIA Tegra 2 scores around 7500, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 scores 8000.

According to VR-Zone the Medfield platform, while having impressive benchmark scores consumes a great deal of power. The website claims the chip consumes 2.6W in idle mode, and 3.6W while playing HD video.

Mike Bell, Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group general manager, told the BBC, “Battery life on this platform is not the best in the mobile market, but it is by far not the worst.”

join j-tech @ facebook