Oh Atom. You came, you revolutionized…and then you basically sat on your ass. It has been two years now since Atom has been released, and in that time period we’ve seen little more than a modest increase in battery life. No performance upgrades, no upgrade to a better media accelerator so that video doesn’t had Atom based systems their hat. Now, according to Fudzilla, we won’t be seeing a major update to Atom in 2011, either.
Rumor has it that the next generation of Atom, which is to ship in mid to late 2011, won’t receive a new chipset. There will be a performance boost to the processor and some updates to media support for the graphics, but that is about it. In other words, it appears that the Atom of 2011 isn’t going to be much different from the Atom of today.
Is Intel not concerned about AMD’s Bobcat, which is supposed to be releasing in early 2011? Perhaps. I think the more like motivation for Intel is a belief in that research into ultra-low voltage processors will render Atom largely obsolete. In terms of performance relative to battery life, this is already correct. However, price is important. The two largest PC vendors in the world, HP and Acer, are the largest because the compete on price. With many netbooks now available under $300, netbooks show every sign that they’ll remain part of the market, and I don’t see Intel ever squeezing ultra-low voltage processors into a price point which is compatible with the direction netbooks are headed.
Source: Fudzilla
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