Seven Samurai chipmakers set to take on Intel
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted September 4th 2009 3:58PM
posted September 4th 2009 3:58PM
You know, it's been nearly forty years since Intel introduced the first microprocessor, and even at this late date the company comprises a whopping eighty percent of the global market for CPUs. But not so fast! Like an electronics industry remake of The Magnificent Seven (which is, of course, an American remake of The Seven Samurai) NEC and Renesas have teamed up with a stalwart band of companies, including Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Panasonic, and Canon, to develop a new CPU that is compatible with Waseda University professor Hironori Kasahara's "innovative energy-saving software." The goal is to create a commercial processor that runs on solar cells, moderates power use according to the amount of data being processed (a current prototype runs on 30% the power of a standard CPU), remains on even when mains power is cut, and, of course, upsets the apple cart over at Intel. Once a standard is adopted and the chip is used in a wide range of electronics, firms will be able to realize massive savings on software development. The new format is expected to to be in place by the end of 2012. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]
Canon is a $42 billion company, AMD is a $3 billion company... of course, IBM dwarfs both of them.
I wasn't thinking so much about their market cap as I was thinking about their experience with CPUs for the desktop market. IBM and AMD have both failed to make a dent in that market, and both companies have much greater experience and expertise in that market space.
FAIL if it doesn't work with the current XP and W7.
WIN if it does IMO.
Thank heaven, we all knew AMD wasn't up to the task.
more power to them...the more competition the better products their will be
if intel gets taken down in the end its their fault for not innovating...or at least providing a product we want to consume
Or the American government tries to do something like...oh I don't know...label them a monopoly and impede their ability to compete.
Transmeta was kind of similar to this. I remember all the high hopes everyone had about Transmeta. Heck, Intel beat them without even having a competitor, they had no low power chip. But no one bought anything Transmeta because they were too slow anyway.
Sorry but it seems Intel is a juggernaut. At one time, I hated Intel with a passion and loved AMD, that was the time that AMD processors were cheaper and faster, but ever since Core came out, Intel has become my favorite.
I agree. Intel has had no competition for two years now.
That is one clusterfuck of "insides"
unfortuanetly, they will mostly be competiting with ibm and sun on that front and not intel. intel owns 80% of the processor market because of the CONSUMER sector, for which millions of processors ship per year, whereas looking at the enterprise and military/research/university field intels market share is far more diluted, with ibm providing most of the processors in the latter field (military and research and development). in these fields software is made on the basis of what architecture is required/being used, so they wont have too much trouble getting in there (though ibm is known for their high performance, low power consumption processors, so it will be a very good competition there).
but getting into the consumer market, where most of intels market share comes from, is another story entirely. here the overwhelming majority of software is made mostly for x86, with a small amount made for powerpc and other architectures, so breaking into the consumer market would require them to build these processors using x86, for which they would have to get a license from intel (and thus pay intel massive amounts of money in licensing costs and royalties as well), and intel isnt too keen on licensing that out either. the other option would be to try and kill x86 with a new consumer architecture, but that could take decades, after all ibm tried to do just that and failed.
not bashing this architecture, just saying why they really arent competing as much with intel as they are ibm and sun (among others), and why it wont seriously cut into intels overall market share.
It's daily monopoly like everything else in the US if you've never been to Europe and never compared!
"Once a standard is adopted and the chip is used in a wide range of electronics, firms will be able to realize massive savings on software development."
Explain that sentence to me please, how can a new CPU, with powersaving stuff or not, cause savings on software development? It's not like intel asks money if you write code for their CPU's, so how would savings be brought about in software development?