{"id":219,"date":"2011-02-10T00:15:22","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T23:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/?p=219"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:33:53","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T12:33:53","slug":"intels-mobile-backdoor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/intels-mobile-backdoor\/","title":{"rendered":"Intel\u2019s Mobile Backdoor?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cs.northwestern.edu\/~pdinda\/Papers\/NWU-EECS-10-06.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-223\" title=\"Total system power breakdown with and without considering the Idle state time\" src=\"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/power-smartphone.gif\" alt=\"Total system power breakdown with and without considering the Idle state time\" width=\"618\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/power-smartphone.gif 618w, http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/power-smartphone-300x171.gif 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On a modern smartphone, the screen consumes more power than the <span class=\"caps\">CPU<\/span> (&gt;3x), so the power advantage of the <span class=\"caps\">ARM<\/span> over Intel chips gets diluted, even taking into account that differences in use between users are huge, rendering power consumption characterization impossible (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cl.cam.ac.uk\/~nv240\/papers\/held03k-vallinarodriguez.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">Exhausting battery statistics<\/a>). That <span class=\"caps\">ARM<\/span> chips are so energy efficient it\u2019s a history of unintended consequences and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Path_dependence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">path-dependence<\/a>: the packaging of the first <span class=\"caps\">ARM<\/span> chips <a href=\"http:\/\/queue.acm.org\/detail.cfm?id=1716385\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">were made in plastic<\/a> to keep costs as low as possible, instead of using the more common ceramic packaging, as in Intel chips, so they had to keep the power dissipation below a watt. And now, it\u2019s also path-dependence what keeps Intel outside the mobile world: everyone will keep on using <span class=\"caps\">ARM<\/span> chips, even if the power efficiency advantage gets irrelevant.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Will Intel dare to change from being a vertical integrated manufacturer to an open licensor, just to beat <span class=\"caps\">ARM<\/span>, even if that means lower profit margins? Or will they risk seeing their <span class=\"caps\">ISA<\/span> get less executed all over the&nbsp;world?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a modern smartphone, the screen consumes more power than the <span class=\"caps\">CPU<\/span> (&gt;3x), so the power advantage of the <span class=\"caps\">ARM<\/span> over Intel chips gets diluted, even taking into account that differences in use between users are huge, rendering power consumption characterization impossible (see Exhausting battery statistics). That <span class=\"caps\">ARM<\/span> chips are so energy efficient it\u2019s&nbsp;a&nbsp;[\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}