Tuesday, May 13, 2003
New ARM Processor For Handhelds?
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "HARDWARE" @ 02:30 PM
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1001292.html?tag=fd_top
"MediaQ, a small chipmaker that creates graphics accelerators for handheld devices, is expected to launch a new chip next week that could challenge Texas Instruments and Intel. The new processor, named Katana after the Japanese sword, has an ARM processor core, onboard memory, and a series of built-in hardware processing engines dedicated to jobs such as rendering graphics or processing video."
Apparently MediaQ has experience in handhelds as their graphics chips are "used in a number of different PDA models built by manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard, Sony and Toshiba." I assume that is the Pocket PC and Sony Clie.
Remember that all Pocket PCs starting with Pocket PC 2002 and all Palm OS5 and higher use ARM processors. The Intel StrongARM is an ARMv4 chip while the Intel X-Scale, TI OMAP and other newer designs are ARMv5 chips. Currently, all shipping Pocket PCs use Intel's X-Scale except for a few of the Phone devices which still rely on the StrongARM. HP ventured out with the limited production Jornada 728 WDA and used a TI OMAP processor. If nothing else, this puts more competition into the handheld chip arena which tends to drive prices down and performance up. They are targeting the lower end of the device spectrum - PDA prices in the sub $350 range - leaving higher end devices to TI and Intel, for now. Shipments are expected in the next month, so you could see a MediaQ processor in a Pocket PC by Christmas.
"MediaQ, a small chipmaker that creates graphics accelerators for handheld devices, is expected to launch a new chip next week that could challenge Texas Instruments and Intel. The new processor, named Katana after the Japanese sword, has an ARM processor core, onboard memory, and a series of built-in hardware processing engines dedicated to jobs such as rendering graphics or processing video."
Apparently MediaQ has experience in handhelds as their graphics chips are "used in a number of different PDA models built by manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard, Sony and Toshiba." I assume that is the Pocket PC and Sony Clie.
Remember that all Pocket PCs starting with Pocket PC 2002 and all Palm OS5 and higher use ARM processors. The Intel StrongARM is an ARMv4 chip while the Intel X-Scale, TI OMAP and other newer designs are ARMv5 chips. Currently, all shipping Pocket PCs use Intel's X-Scale except for a few of the Phone devices which still rely on the StrongARM. HP ventured out with the limited production Jornada 728 WDA and used a TI OMAP processor. If nothing else, this puts more competition into the handheld chip arena which tends to drive prices down and performance up. They are targeting the lower end of the device spectrum - PDA prices in the sub $350 range - leaving higher end devices to TI and Intel, for now. Shipments are expected in the next month, so you could see a MediaQ processor in a Pocket PC by Christmas.
