We’ve been trying to keep readers informed about the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update and when it will come to various devices and today we have heard that Android Jelly Bean has now been ported to Intel Medfield chips. These Intel chips are currently used in some devices running Android 2.3 and Android 4.0 so those with the relevant devices may be a step closer to receiving the 4.1 Jelly Bean update.
Medfield is the title of Intel’s low-power Atom chips and one person who seems pretty excited that Jelly Bean has now been ported to these chips is Intel’s vice president and general manager Mike Bell. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco he was keen for everyone to know and said, “I’m running it.” He’s not the only one either as Bell went on to add that other Intel employees with Medfield chip devices are also running Jelly Bean.
However he also stressed that although Intel has managed to port Jelly Bean, it isn’t up to the company as to when customers with the relevant devices will begin receiving the 4.1 update. Bell pointed out that this is down carriers and device makers saying, “We can’t put it on the phones. We have to give it to the carriers to put on the phones and they go through acceptance testing,” according to PCWorld.
Although Intel’s entry into the smartphone market is relatively new, with the first devices using an Intel Chip released in April, the company seems pleased enough with its progress so far and there are plans for a dual-core Medfield chip later this year. Smartphones using the new dual-core Medfield chip should then be available from the early part of next year.so far the company has concentrated on tablets using Windows 8 and smartphones using the Android OS, Intel is also considering moves to use the Tizen OS for further devices. It’s all looking very positive at the moment then for Intel’s endeavors within the mobile market.
It’s finally here: an Android-powered smartphone running on an Intel chip. That’s big news, right. Sure it is, but the devil is in the details. The phone in question is the RAZR i – the ”i”, if you couldn’t guess, is for “Intel”, and it’s running one of Intel’s Medfield-based Atom processors.
semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue1, but they’ve been somewhat slow getting into the mobile market (and by that I mean smartphones and tablets). The primary reason for that is due to their architecture. When most people think “Intel” they think x86 and x64 processors. Androids run on ARM chips. What’s the difference? Quite a bit.
To begin with, we can compare the Medfield processor to the ARM Cortex A-9 which runs many of today’s Androids. They’re both 32nm chips, depending on the implementation of the ARM. Generally speaking, smaller chips draw less power, run cooler, and are less expensive to make (because they require less raw materials to make). Some of the ARM processors in today’s smartphones and tablets are built at 45nm or larger, but the new ones like the Samsung Galaxy S III are 32nm.
Processors run code, but in this case they use different instruction sets. The Medfield, like other ATOM chips, is an x86 processor. This means it runs 32bit, CISC-style instructions. ARM processors run 32bit, RISC-style instructions. Normally this would be a problem when it comes to running apps, but Android addresses that very well. Every app that you’ll find in the Play Store runs in a virtual machine (we’ll talk more about that in our next episode of Android Power User), so all another chip vendor has to do is translate the operating system to run on its architecture, and all the existing apps run just fine.
Looking at comments on other news articles covering this topic, that’s a major point of confusion, so let me be perfectly clear: app developers will NOT have to re-write or even re-compile their apps to work on Intel chips. Current apps will “just work”. I can’t make it any more simple than that.
Medfield is spec’d to max out at 2GHz. Like most other processors, it doesn’t run with the throttle full-open, instead it adjusts to the demands of the system. This uses less power and puts off less heat, but also means there is a momentary “hesitation” while the chip ramps up — just like in your car when you hit the gas and it takes a few seconds to get up to speed.
The press release for the RAZR i is a bit ambiguous, saying it’s ”the first smartphone that can achieve speeds of 2.0 GHz”. “Can achieve” and “does achieve” aren’t necessarily the same thing, so I’m a little curious about why Motorola worded their press release using the less clear terminology. Nonetheless, if the phone truly runs at 2GHz, it’ll be a first, and significantly “faster” than other Androids, right.
The ARM Cortex-A9 is capable of up to four cores and 2GHz, though we haven’t seen any devices take full advantage of this yet.The Medfield, unlike the ARM we’re comparing it against, is a single-core processor, but it does employ Intel’s “hyper-threading” technology to give the impression of two cores. Though this isn’t as speedy, it does have advantages over single-core chips. How does it fare with dual- and quad-core ARMs clocked “significantly slower” than 2GHz? Not that great according to early benchmarks.
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