Intel's Atom. The specs of this chip do not fail to impress. Power is low enough for fanless operations. Die size is unbelievably less than 26mm2 - that’s a lot of dies per wafer. And performance is where it needs to be.

Talking about performance, Tech Report ran a comparative review of Intel’s desktop Atom 230 and the VIA Nano L2100. Even though the VIA device pretty much cleaned up in all the tests, when IE7 was used to compare browser performance, neither platform was appreciably slower than the quad-core system that the reviewer used every day.

Out of all the tests that Tech Report carried out, the browser comparison tells us all we need to know. Since most people use their PC for Internet use, a PC based around an Atom or Nano processor would be good enough for most users needs.

But the majority of people who are in the market for a PC don’t want to buy an Internet appliance type device and be restricted because of its lack of flexibility. Since a PC in the home will generally be used by more than one person, flexibility in the platform is a must.

Which brings us back to the Atom. To date Atom based devices have only been available with Intel chipsets. Also, platform choice has been limited. Netbook type devices come with small screens, small keyboards and little flexibility. Atom based systems that come bundled with a full-size screen and keyboard are still limited by their lack of or limited expansion.

All of this seems to indicate that there is an unwritten law that says Intel won’t be happy at all to see full-sized desktops and laptops powered by the the Intel Atom processor. And let’s not forget that Microsoft is trying real hard to put its very popular Windows XP operating system to rest.

I’m sure that there are many who would be interested in buying a full-sized Atom based laptop that is fanless, ships with a solid state drive (SSD), and probably most important of all, especially for business, ships with the venerable and loved Windows XP operating system.

I’m also sure that there are many others who would like a similar hardware and software setup in a traditional desktop PC, where there is room for at least three or four expansion slots.

Restraint of trade
Having recently finished rebuilding an automotive engine, I was doing some research on engine oil that I could use.

As it so happened I came across a bunch of lawsuits involving Dupont, which concerned the use of its Teflon product in oil additive solutions. Dupont had stopped supplying Teflon to these oil additive companies, as the chemical giant believed that its product wasn’t being used as directed.

Of course, the oil additive companies responded and sued Dupont. Dupont lost because it couldn’t legally stop a company from buying its product for something else that the Dupont hadn’t intended - that’s restraint of trade.

So why haven’t we yet seen full-sized Atom based laptop and desktop computers? Has Intel, unofficially, already dictated what Atom platforms are allowed?

A PC Perspective piece from last July said that Atom motherboard vendors had complained about the number of restrictions that Intel had imposed: Apparently, vendors are not allowed to build Atom boards that include PCI Express and digital video outputs. These boards are also restricted to just one memory slot.

All of this is worrying. As a US consumer, why can’t I have the option to buy an Intel Atom based motherboard that has PCI Express, digital video out and two DDR2 memory slots. Why should a monopolist like Intel impose on others that which serves its own interests best?

Because the majority of these Atom based motherboards are designed and manufactured in the Far East, I don’t know if the US restaint of trade laws have any jurisdiction there.

But these products do get imported into the US. So if it can be proved that Intel action caused the US consumer to suffer higher costs because of its foreign anticompetitive behaviour, maybe US law or the FTC can bring Intel to book.

Andrew Thomas adds:
Almost a decade ago, back in early 1999, Intel found itself in a similar position. The first generation entry-level Celeron chip was, to put it mildly, a disappointment. The chip, codenamed Covington, displayed such poor performance that Intel rushed out the far-superior Mendocino version complete with on-die L2 cache. This did the trick as far as addressing the performance shortcomings of the hopeless non-cached part, but also posed a serious threat to the Celeron's big brother, the Pentium II.

Intel threw all its marketing might behind Celeron in a bid to stomp on upstarts AMD and Cyrix in the sub $1,000 market, and at the same time took its eye off the ball with the cash cow Pentium II. In short, Intel did such a great job marketing the new Celeron that it forgot this was a low-margin part and the real money was made from large corporates buying expensive Pentium II machines.

The Pentium II was far more costly to fabricate - buying in and then soldering separate L2 cache chips onto the processor daughterboard and putting the whole thing into a shiny black cartridge all added megabucks to manufacturing costs. So many bucks, in fact, that the plastic box that the Pentium II came in cost more to produce than complete chips from AMD and Cyrix.

And even though Celeron had only a quarter of the L2 cache of its big brother, because it was on the same piece of silicon, it ran at the full core speed as the CPU. And 128K running at 400MHz was more than a match for 512K running at 200MHz.

So any move on Intel's part to put marketing restrictions on how the Atom can be used is perfectly understandable. At least the chip giant learns from its mistakes. X
  
Check Out
The Tech Report review
Dupont and Teflon
PC Perspective