Details About New StrongArm Chips Leaked (Updated)

Posted By: Ed Tuesday, August 22, 2000 2:38:58 PM

InfoWorld is quoting "a source familiar with Intel's plans" giving some advance details on the announcements that will be made tomorrow about Intel's two new StrongARM chips.

Coyanosa is the next generation of the SA 110 and will boast a clock speed of 600MHz. Cotulla is patterned on Intel's SA 1110 and is expected to debut at 400MHz.

Cotulla will include built-in support for USB, infrared communications, and an LCD screen. Putting support for all these into a single chip should permit smaller motherboards and thus smaller devices. Cotulla will have twice the clock speed of the StrongARM 1110 but won't consume much more power.

Palm has said it is planning on moving to processors based on the ARM architecture. Back in April, Palm CEO Carl Yankowski said that, in the "near future", at least some of Palm's handhelds will be powered by processors from ARM.

Update: Though the official announcement hasn't been made yet, Intel appears to be updating its Web site a bit early. Details can now be found about a new chip set called XScale that is based on the ARM chips. Here's a quote from their site:

Building on Intel® StrongARM technology, the Intel XScale microarchitecture core is manufactured on Intel’s advanced 0.18 micron process technology. It offers low power features ranging from one ten-thousandth of a watt to 1.6 watts, and performance capabilities that allow it to operate at clock speeds spanning from zero (standby mode) up to 1 GHz.
XScale lets developers scale clock frequency and voltage for specific apps while optimizing power usage.

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Oh boy, oh boy...

maven @ 8/22/2000 7:03:26 PM #
I can hardly wait! Fomaing at the mouth already :-) (thinking... GB Advance emulator anyone? that would be awesome!)

New chips do no good...
404 @ 8/22/2000 10:20:02 PM #
When is OS 4 coming out? These new chips don't really do Palm users any good - OS3.3 & 3.5 only support 160*160 res. & 8MB on memory. Has anyone heard anything about OS 4 yet?

404

RE: New chips do no good...
Ed @ 8/23/2000 8:02:24 AM #
A source familiar with Palm's plans told us recently that a fall release date for OS 4 is unlikely but look for it in the first quarter of 2001.

---
Plenipotentiary
Palm InfoCenter

Oh great, hardware fragmentation.

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/23/2000 4:07:14 PM #
So much for Palm...

Unless ARM works on EXACTLY the same instruction set, Palms just became a totally useless device!

That is, unless you want to buy more apps that will not work on your next device (or run the risk that apps bought for the next device won't work on its replacement either)...

Suddenly, you have to worry about whether the app you downloaded/bought will work on your processor!

Make no mistake, they said "SOME" not all. This means that Os4.0 will have to run on 2 different processors.

Sounds like a neat idea, but anyone shopping for software for a Alpha running NT will realize that nothing good is down that road.

And let's not forget about the burden to the programmers who may or may not be able to afford a cross platform compiler (and thus may not be able to deliver apps for one processor or the other!)

For those who think I'm out to lunch, find a WinCE device owner, and ask them what kind of a problem different processors causes.

- Clinton R. Johnson

RE: hardware fragmentation
maven @ 8/23/2000 5:01:42 PM #
You think Palm hasn't thought of that? The new hardware will emulate the old to make all existing applications compatible (at least those that don't do 'unsupported' tricks-- which Palm has been warning developers about) Their biggest selling point of MS is the large number of applications available. They won't squander that.
-Mike

whoa

Raishe_werk @ 8/23/2000 6:31:39 PM #
wow, so many conflicting views. i don''t know enough to say either side is full of $hit. i am hoping that atleast some of the comments are not gonna happen (eg fragmentation). it might happen. but for now it sounds kewl, and i am looking forward to it.

-Raishe
"Moster Pig kills Jesus
More at 11"

Pilot Install

KillJoy @ 8/29/2000 11:02:35 AM #
No special app needed! I've been doing palm file xfers via my laptop IR & Win2k for months.
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