14 DAY TRIAL // Even though Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have been making great progress when it comes to power efficiency, ARM can still claim to have the least power-hungry CPUs on the market. Nevertheless, ARM CPUs are also known for not being capable of matching the performance of x86 CPUs. Both these gaps are, for better or worse, steadily narrowing, however, and as Intel started promoting its Atom Z6xx series of smartphone chips, ARM dual-core processors ended up in a certain, very promising NVIDIA Tegra 2 slate set to be unveiled at Computex.
Quite soon, Advanced Micro Devices will unleash dual-core Ontario low-power processors based on the Fusion technology, which will bring DirectX 11 graphics with mainstream PC capabilities to mobile devices. Meanwhile, Intel's aforementioned chips will run rampant. As such, one may not expect ARM to be very optimistic about its chances on the tablet front. Nevertheless, ARM Holdings believes quite strongly that it will power at least half of all tablet form factor electronics set to debut by next year.
“ARM expects 50% of the global tablet PCs to be using its processor IP in 2011,” said Bob Morris, the director of mobile computing at ARM, reports DigiTimes web-site.
Morris predicted that the global slate shipments during 2010 would amount to four million, a figure set to grow to 21 million next year. He also reportedly stated that high-tier PC suppliers, the likes of HP, Dell Lenovo and Sharp, are already tirelessly working on ARM-based smartbooks and slates.
“Morris expects global tablet PC shipments to total four million units in 2010 and the volume will rise to 21 million units in 2011, with close to 40 ARM-based tablet PC models to appear in the channel. PC vendors including Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Lenovo and Sharp have all already adopted ARM-based processors for their smartbook and tablet PC products,” the report states.