Quote Originally Posted by Solus Corvus View Post
I'm not talking gross margins, just margins. Your example doesn't disagree with what I said. Atom in this example is still a lower margin product.
True. But it is incremental to current business and it is an opportunity that needs to be pursued.

For the tablet/netbook level Atom is too weak for a decent experience, IME. I'm curious to see how ontario fits in those formats. They are just a little too small for CULV.
If Atom is weak, what about current ARM designs like Ipad and Iphone ? Those CPUs are much slower than Atom. Maybe the whole point is not performance, but power ? Atom has still too much performance per clock to be able to go down to a few hundred milliwats of power. The uarch needs to be simplified or moved aggressively to new processes. Performance is the last issue.


You make it sound like those are the only two options. Personally I'd like to see Intel and AMD both release low-power non-x86 architectures to more effectively compete with ARM in these segments. I think this is where things are going to heat up in the next few years.
Why bother and reinvent the wheel when you already have x86 ? The whole problem is getting it into the right envelope. And from then on, for Intel at least, its process advantage will leave ARM&foundries in the dust.