Intel Corp (INTC)

[simplytom]

Intel lacks "connected standby" on WIFI

The reason why the comms-business-group inside intel dipped so badly was not because of the 3G to LTE conversion (it depends a little on this, but not that much).

Intel was known for quite good wifi-modules.
Think about Intel Wireless 4965 or Intel Wireless 6235 or Intel Wireless 6300.

You had to include the Intel-WIFI-Module in order to meet the Centrino design-guidelines.

This is long ago.

So currently in order to build a "connected-standby-ready"-device you are forced to use a broadcomm- or qualcomm-WIFI-module. Because those modules have a small communication-CPU inside the chip to keep communication alive while the main-CPU is completely in sleep mode.

The magic word is NDIS 6.3 (D0 offload, Wake on push).

Intel has done a lot of refactoring work in the last year. They had to bring the Infineon-knowledge in line to meet connected standby requirements. Hermann Eul was the captain on the bridge during last year.

And they had to make strategic decisions.
Baytrail-CR, Cherrytrail-CR, Haswell-Refresh-ULX and Broadwell-ULX share a common interface to connect to "WAN, WIFI, GPS, Sensor-Stuff"-Module.

The magic word is (I don't know exactly why) -> NGFF.
Next Generation Form Factor.

Intel was long time not able to deliver a complete package with SoC + Comms + drivers out of one hand.
I want to put the finger into the wound.
I want to show you BUILD-Sessions from September 2011:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/HW-456T
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/HW-566T
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/HW-342T

Intel is ready with the complete stack (SoC + Comms + Driver) during summer 2014 with the release of Baytrail-CR and Haswell-Refresh.

Every time a new Win8- or Win8.1-tablet was released (I saw Samsung Samsung ATIV 500, Acer W510, Asus ME400C, Dell Venue 8pro, Dell Venue 11pro with i5-Processor, Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2) there was a really ugly learning curve for every manufacturer to get the bugs out, because a lot of the drivers are so much scrambled around.

I saw a similar ugly learning curve when Sony Ericsson went from Android 2.3.5 to Android 4.0 with their Qualcomm-phones. After 6 Month they had fixed the issues with battery drain, bad touch-input recognition, bad cellular hand-over and so on.

But since the driver issues at Sony Ericsson were fixed there was almost no architectural change/driver sleep-state change -> across the complete product stack going from snapdragon 200 to snapdragon 801.

So I think when Intel have a stable foundation/platform (PCB + driver) in the "Off-SoC-Space" (the opposite is "On-Soc") they have a winner package.
Second point is they have to offer a common platform from lowend to highend.
Comparable to Snapdragon200 to Snapdragon801.
The qualcomm-driver-package is almost unified.

So they need a unified package across Baytrail-CR, Cherrytrail-CR and Haswell-Refresh-ULX, Broadwell-ULX (and I think they have done a lot of work in this space). Just to bring stability for the next 2 years. It is not about gfx-performance, it is not really about Win8.

It is the complexity of developing a great product-User-experience.
Even Microsoft needed 3 Month to have a great Surface-Pro-2-driver-package.
And Surface-Pro-2 is not a "connected-standby-ready"-device -> it completely lacks this feature.

The very first 64-bit-connected-standby-Win8-device is the HP Elitepad 1000 G2
http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW-USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start;sid=r6wFZz5SIvMGZ20FDZ_N8-ddfaI9FmLRygs=?ProductUUID=VHsQ7EN5PNgAAAFEfhNoqjWp&CatalogCategoryID=hUEQ7EN5kHUAAAFEctxoqj_8&JumpTo=OfferList

This is a Baytrail-design.
No Connected-Standby-Haswell-Refresh-designs are finalized yet.