Imagine your laptop running all day on a single charge, costing only half what conventional laptops do. Too good to be true? Not if the world’s largest cellphone chip designer has its way.
UK-based ARM, which designs chips for over 97% of the world’s mobile phones, has now set its sight on the notebook market. However, unlike traditional notebooks, ARM chip-powered laptops, expected by second quarter of fiscal 2009, will be cheaper and last through the day on a single charge.
Mike Muller, CTO, said, “Notebooks based on our chips should give 5-10 times more battery life than such products in the market today.” Currently, over 92% of the personal computer (PC) market, including notebooks, uses Intel or AMD microprocessors.
But nearly all mobile phones, portable media players, printers etc are built around ARM-designed core chips. Though they use a fraction of the power used by Intel and AMD chips, ARM microprocessors are not used in laptops as none of the major operating systems support it. However, trimmed down versions of operating systems, such as Windows Mobile, iPhone OS and Google Android, run on ARM processors, mostly in cellphones and media players.
So, the ‘Wintel (Windows-Intel)’ combination has a virtual monopoly in the PC market. But things may change in April when the South Africa-based Canonical, the promoter of Ubuntu Linux OS, brings out the first full-fledged ‘PC’ OS for ARM chips. “People have been asking us, ‘Can I get something more like a standard laptop running on ARM, with all the associated benefits like long battery life etc’?” says Muller. “Our answer was to work with our manufacturing partners. The products will start hitting the market next year.”
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