At CES yesterday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini talked up Menlow, the company's platform for Linux-based Mobile Internet Devices. He also demo'd the first-ever Intel Architecture (IA) system-on-chip (SoC) for consumer electronics, a “Canmore” processor available later this year for Internet-enabled set-top boxes,… media players, and TVs.

The Canmore chip combines “a dedicated audio and video decode system that allows the chip to play 1080p video and 7.1 surround sound,” said Otellini. The chip also boasts a 3D graphics unit, technology for broadcast and multicast TV, and an unspecified IA microprocessor core, all apparently combined on a single silicon die. The Canmore stage demonstration was limited to a brief announcement and the display of a few seconds of HD TV footage, however.

Intel in April leaked plans for a Tolapai SoC. That chip was to combine a Pentium-like core with graphics, memory, and standard PC interfaces. However, it now appears that Canmore will be the Intel's first IA-based SoC. Of Canmore, Otellini stated, “It's our first system-on-chip for CE devices.”

Menlow the focus

Most of the show focused not on the set-top where Canmore will find its home, but in Menlow's world of handheld Internet-enabled devices, which Otellini said would be “next big thing in computing.” Aimed squarely at Linux-based Mobile Internet Devices, and still on target for shipment in the first half of this year, Menlow comprises Intel's “Silverthorne” mobile device processor and “Poulsbo” companion chip (integrated north-/south-bridge), along with an optional penny-sized Z-P140 solid-state disk that will scale to 16GB. The Silverthorne processor is among a select number of Intel products based on its 45nm silicon process and “High-K” metal gate transistor technologies — evidence of Intel's strong commitment to the mobile device market.

Several stage sketches/demonstrations featured an American visiting Beijing, and using a pocket-sized MID to visually translate building signs, translate directions in real-time, and identify sites and attractions using a 3D virtual-landscape “augmented reality” technology from EveryScape. The world is “going ultra mobile,” said Otellini, with devices that “deliver a no-compromise Web experience in an ultra low power device small enough to fit in your pocket or purse.”

Yet, four obstacles stand in the way of this future era of pervasive mobile Internet devices, Otellini reckons:

• Microprocessors must be more powerful and consume less power
• Wireless broadband infrastructure needs to be more broadly deployed. (Here,
  Intel once again pushed Wimax as its favored solution.)
• The Internet must be more intelligent, proactive, and context-aware.
• More natural user interfaces are required using voices and gestures

A video transcript of Otellini's talk may be available here. His slide presentation is currently here.

 
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