Intel Corp (INTC)

[Professor MD]

kpf. I hope the story below will help your "emotional brain".

http://www.intel.com/community/texas/spotlight.htm

Intel Texas took the lead in developing a powerful, battery-efficient computer chip for Ultra-Mobile PC's that could be Intel's most important new processor since the early 1990s, when the Pentium® line raised the bar for PC performance. The Austin American-Statesman newspaper recently reported on Silverthorne. Read the entire story:

Intel banks on new Austin-designed chip
Silverthorne could power a new generation of portable multimedia devices.
By Kirk Ladendorf
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, July 23, 2007

Hoping to catch a coming wave of demand for multifunction portable devices like the iPhone*, Intel Corp. has developed a powerful, battery-efficient computer chip that it believes could be its most important new processor since the early 1990s, when its Pentium® line raised the bar for PC performance.

The new chip, code-named Silverthorne, was created in Austin by an expanding engineering team that by the end of the year is expected to bring Intel's local work force to 800 people, the largest in its nine-year history here.

Silverthorne design team A team in Austin that included, from left, Elinora Yoeli, Gian Gerorsa and Haytham Samarchi, designed a chip that will help power portable multimedia devices similar to these.

If Intel is right, millions of consumers will be using pocket-sized computers in the next few years to watch videos, play interactive games, surf the Internet and scout services that will locate nearby restaurants and stores.

Silverthorne is the first of a family of processors Intel will develop for those new mobile products, which will be more powerful and flashier than today's smart cell phones and lighter and cheaper than today's high-end laptop computers. "The iPhone* has demonstrated that the market is there. Now it's just a hunt for the right product," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with technology research firm the Enderle Group.

Silverthorne itself isn't designed to handle voice communications; rather, it will be aimed at pocket-sized computers and Internet-connected entertainment devices. But it could also be used in high-end cell phones to run multimedia software while other hardware components process voice data.

Intel is working on the new product category from all angles. It has spent heavily on developing and promoting high-speed WiMAX technology for more capable wireless data networks. It is backing Sprint Nextel Corp. as it moves to get a national WiMAX network in operation next year.

Meanwhile, Intel has poured resources into developing the hardware platform. "The devices need the network, and the network uses the devices. They both need each other," said analyst Iain Gillott of research firm iGR in Austin. "The trick is to get both sides working with the right business model at the same time so they kick-start each other."

Intel CEO Paul Otellini has already heaped praise on Silverthorne, calling it potentially the most significant Intel chip since the first Pentium® processors sent a surge of increased performance through personal computing starting in 1994. Otellini showed off the first working prototypes of Silverthorne at an Intel developer forum in Beijing in April; volume production begins early next year. Right now, the chip is being tested and evaluated by Intel and its potential customers, which Intel declined to identify but probably would include major computer and electronics makers.

In late 2004, the Austin team began to develop a basic design or architecture for the chip to give it sufficient performance to run Windows-compatible multimedia applications while only sipping battery power. The chip uses between half a watt and 2 watts of electrical power in typical operations, about one-tenth as much as the typical laptop computer chip.

It was delivered five months ahead of schedule by the Austin team and will be cheap to manufacture. Intel says 2,500 of the tiny chips can fit on a single 12-inch silicon wafer, which means Intel can make them cheaply enough to go into a consumer device that analysts expect will cost about $600.

Intel isn't providing many details about the chip's performance, saying only that it is good enough to deliver a satisfying experience to consumers who are surfing the Web or playing video clips or movies.

That doesn't mean Silverthorne will automatically become a huge hit in the marketplace. But it will get its chance. "Risk-taking is part of our culture," said Haytham Samarchi, a senior engineering manager on the project. "You make calculated risks and hope to leapfrog the competition. If you don't take risks, you are not going to go anywhere."

Enderle said Intel will have few immediate competitors in the new product category.

"It requires a lot of resources to do something like this, and Intel is the only one with resources to burn," he said. Engineers point to several reasons that the chip was completed well ahead of schedule. The design team was small by Intel standards (the company isn't saying how small) and located within one engineering center, which made communication crisper.

Another factor may have been project manager Elinora Yoeli, a tough-minded veteran engineering manager who spent most of her career with Intel in her native Israel before moving to Austin several years ago. Yoeli pushed her team hard and put key groups of engineers in rooms called "dungeons" at Intel's South MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) offices to avoid interruptions. "If you are on the critical path (of the development project), you had better get focused and get after that," Yoeli said.

The first version of Silverthorne is essentially done, but Yoeli doesn't want anyone easing up. As mobile Internet devices evolve, she expects that her team will have to respond quickly with improved versions of Silverthorne.

The new chip "does a nice job now, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way a year from now," she said. "Being so many years at Intel, you learn to be very paranoid."

She echoes the attitude made famous by former Intel CEO Andy Grove: " 'Only the paranoid survive' is something you grow up with in the company."