Apple says NO to Intel's Moorestown Platform

Says it wants a processor with lesser power consumption

Intel's Moorestown platform for MID's

Apple has rejected Intel’s Moorestown Atom platform by claming that this platform is power hungry. According to latest rumors Apple rejected the Moorestown chips saying that this is unsuitable for their mobile devices as decided by Cupertino engineers. According to some unknown sources Intel approached Apple on it’s own and suggested about the ultra mobile platform but apple rejected it due to power consumption reasons.

According to Fudzilla, Apple is looking for idle power consumption which is 10 times lower than what intel’s Moorestown Atom platform is providing presently. Reducing power consumption to ten times is a huge leap and until Intel reaches that target, people will not see any Apple multimedia device equipped with Intel’s chip. Nvidia is providing a huge competition to Intel’s chip as Nvidia's Tegra is far better in power consumption parameter as compared to Moorestown Atom chip.

Apple’s requirement supports the rumors that Apple is looking to build an ARM based tablet which is efficient enough to draw Moorestown’s power at full speed, but the trait of the device may lead to shorter battery life when running in standby mode. It is being said that the buyout of PA Semiconductor by Apple last year was done by keeping in mind hardware’s like tablet but it was thought at that time that it will also lead to faster and power efficient ARM processors in devices like iPhone and iPod Touch.

Moorestown is a revised version of Atom that combines the graphics and memory controller into a 45 nanometer processor named as Lincroft with an adjacent controller chip named as Langwell. Moorestown in it’s initial design has targeted mobile internet devices (MIDs) of 4-inch or larger screens with supporting battery life closer to a notebook than a smartphone. A compact 32nm version can be used to improve power efficiency but that may not be enough by itself.

This rejection of Atom chip may come as a big blow for Intel whose claim that Moorestown would be ideal for high-end smartphones will face a blow. Also it is possible that any mobile device from Apple in coming future may use a PA Semiconductor chip which will be manufactured by a company that Apple themselves owns.