Seoul (iTers News) - To regain growth momentum lost to tablet PCs and smartphones, Intel Corp. is scrambling to build up a vast reach of manufacturing ecosystem for a new breed of ultrabook PCs in the same way that the PC microprocessor chip giant had done with the Wi-Fi embedded Centrino notebook.
At a press conference held at CES 2012 trade show in Las Vegas, Molley Eden, vice president with Intel sad, “We announced at last July Computex (Taipei) Ultraboo Fund of US$300 million investment in order to accelerate cost reductions of parts and components that are required to build ultrabooks. The reaction was great”.
“OEM and ODM like Toshiba, Dell, Acer, HP, all those guys joined us. And, then, economies of scale kicked in, driving down costs. We are working with them to develop new materials for chassis, and develop new lines in order to accelerate the adoption of (ultrabooks). You will see prices going down. You can see ultrabooks would go into mainstream price points,” added he.
Yet, affordability is just only one piece of what Intel Corp. and its ecosystem partners are setting their sights on to speed up the penetration of ultrabook PCs. Their ultimate goal is to make ultrabook PCs mainstream personal computing devices that not only can compete with tablet PCs in form factors, but also match full-fledged notebook PCs in performance
To make them as thin and affordable as tablet PCs, but get them to interact with people quicker and more intuitively, Intel Corp. and their parts and components suppliers are doing everything from redesigning parts and components to beefing up the power of a CPU.
Cases in point: LCD panel suppliers in the ultraboook manufacturing ecosystem made a big innovation to cut down the thickness of LCD panels from 5mm to 3mm, while secondary battery partners kept down the size of standard lithium ion battery from 18 mm to 6.5 mm.
The chipmaker also made a technology breakthrough on its own by adopting a new BGA, or ball grid array package technology to pack a CPU. Unlike the conventional CPU package method that needs a socket to attach a CPU to a motherboard, the BGA package technology allows motherboard makers to directly solder the CPU to the ultrabook PC motherboard with no need for a socket, giving PC makers more room to cut back on form factors.
Less than 18 mm thick
The size of a heat sink gets reduced, too, as Intel Corp. not only used new materials, but also redesigned a microprocessor chip, the brain of ultrabook PCs, to consume less power. Codenamed as Ivy Bridge, the Intel’s 3rd generation microprocessor for ultrabook PCs consumes just 17 watts, compared with 30 watts that the previous generation processor Sandy Bridge consumed.
“The less heat a microprocessor dissipates, the thinner a heat sink can be,” Molley Eden added.
All combined, these technology innovations have helped Intel Corp. and its PC OEM and ODM partners to build a line of finger-slim ultrabook PCs, which are just 17.8mm thick.
Especially, huge improvements in the power of the 3rd generation Ivy Bridge microprocessor enabled them to revolutionize the way that users interact with ultrabook PCs.
True enough, ultrabook PCs are more about new excitements in user experiences than affordability and slim form factors, because they are built with a wealth of sensors, which will allow users to interface with ultrabook PCs in more intuitive ways than they has done with PCs.
For example, ultrabook PCs are the first ever of its kind that adopt capacitive multi-touch sensor technology, marking the first makeover in the PC UI technology since graphics and icon-based Windows replaced command-and text-based MS-DOS OS in early 1990s.
So, users can type in data in the very traditional and typical way using a real, physical keyboard, but they can also tap in data, or zooming in and out on-screen icons and objects using a built-in touch screen technology.
Especially, as ultrabook PCs come in a clamshell shape, users can slide a real keyboard into under a touch screen and then can touch onto the screen to activate applications programs in the same way as they are doing on a tablet PC.
Double as tablet PCs
“In the last 30 years, if we look at the performance of a microprocessor, the number of transistors has grown up one billion percent. But, if you look at the user interface, man to machine interface, we didn’t do a lot for two reasons,” said Intel’s Molley Eden.
According to him, for one thing, the PC industry hasn’t done a lot of innovations on the UI technology. Neither has the industry had enough computing power to bring new innovations and experiments on the UI technology -so-called natural interface technology- to mainstream.
That explains why notebook PCs has forgone the touch screen technology so far, even if smartphones and tablet PCs has aggressively adopted it.
“Ultrabooks aren’t going to skip the touch screen any more,” stressed Intel’s Molley Eden.
The Ivy Bridge –the Intel 3rd generation microprocessor chip – is built on the industry’s first 22nm node 3D tri-gate transistor technology, which helps greatly reduce power leakages on a standby mode. Coming complete with 4 processor cores and one graphics processor core, the Ivy Bridge microprocessor performs better, but consumes less power, compared with the predecessor Sandy Bridge microprocessor of 32nm node, mainly due to faster and power-thriftier 3D tri-gate transistor technology. It will be due out in April, 2012.
React as users speak and gesture
Intel’s innovations on the UI technology don’t stop there. The microprocessor chip giant signed a strategic partnership with Nuance Communications, Inc. to implement natural voice-activation technology into ultrabook PCs. Powered by Nuance’s voice-recognition technology, which is trademarked as Dragon, users will be able to control and activate their ultrabook PCs just by speaking.
For example, they can not only quickly and easily launch applications, but also play media, check and update social media sites as well as their emails and calendars just only bwith a command of voice.
According to Intel and Nuance, the voice-recognition-powered ultrabook PCs can recognize 9 languages, including English, German, Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Dutch.
Nuance is even working on a new line of voice recognition algorithm that allows a machine like a ultrabook PC to answer users’ speech in voice.
Motion gesture activation is another innovation that Intel is trying to implement into ultrabook PCs. On top of that, ultrabooks are built with an array of MEMS chips, including a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a compass sensor. So, users can gyrate around on-screen objects, or adjust a screen vertically or horizontally in the same way that they play with tablet PCs or smartphones.
Enhances security is another outstanding feature that Intel and its ecosystem partners are working on. Armed with NFC, or near field communication chips and its proprietary privacy protection algorithm, ultra book PCs can identity and authenticate users’ credit card, and enable them to do on-line financial transactions, or e-commerce in a safer and securer way.