Sony Will Use Own Chip for New Handheld

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&ncid=528&e=11&u=/ap/20030719/ap_on_hi_te/sony_clie' target='_blank'>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...hi_te/sony_clie</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/thumb.1058550695.sony_cli_cajm102.jpg" /> "Sony Corp announced the first handheld computer to carry the company's own microprocessor Friday, signaling dissatisfaction with existing chips from others. Sony's new CLIE personal digital assistant, due to ship in September, will also mark the company's entry into wireless (news - web sites) communication. The new line will be optimized for audio files and video — commercial movies as well as personal clips that Sony thinks people will want to share — while draining as little battery power as possible, said Masanobu Yoshida, president of the company's handheld computing company. Current Sony CLIEs have Intel microprocessors. Sony promises smoother video and longer battery life in the new models — 16 hours for continuous playback of music or five hours for video. Performance is to double with an attachable battery pack."<br /><br />This is a fascinating development - in the desktop world, every OEM is beholden to Intel or AMD, although VIA is making a play with their new low-heat chip. In the Pocket PC world, there was once a choice between MIPS, SH3, and ARM processors, all from different vendors. The resources required to test three flavours of the Pocket PC OS was slowing things down however, so they decided to focus on the ARM instruction set. That meant it was Intel only, and thus we suffered through the dismal performance of the XScale PXA250. But now that Samsung has announced the fastest ARM processor yet, things are starting to look interesting.<br /><br />There are a lot of different companies making mobile processors, because no one is truly the king in that realm yet. I wonder if we'll see other big Pocket PC OEMs like HP and Toshiba making their own CPUs, backing away from Intel?

[Macguy59]

But then aren't developers forced to write to the different API's again? I'm all for new R&D, but I would rather have the OEM's not use their own proprietary CPU. As it stands now, the only things I have to decide on for a new PPC is the specs and to a lesser degree cosmetics. I really am not interested in adding yet another wrinkle to my buying decision. Hopefully MS can prevent this from happening again.

[maximus]

The question that I have during the last 12 months ... where is Intel's archrival, AMD ? I would love to see a PPC with 800mhz processor. :D

[Thinkingmandavid]

Now that is a thought, AMD....It seems they are wanting to raise the stakes for themselves. ONce they do this, they are causing the developers to have to catch up. Sony is continueing and their quest to be a one stop for all you want company. I dont think it is going to turn out that way. I think they are going to still find that even with all they have to offer, they are going to need the third party

[Jason Dunn]

The question that I have during the last 12 months ... where is Intel's archrival, AMD ? I would love to see a PPC with 800mhz processor. :D

Simple: AMD went the MIPS route, so they're not a player in the Pocket PC realm.

[Jason Dunn]

But then aren't developers forced to write to the different API's again?

Not really - unless they're doing Xscale-accelerated versions of their applications, which most don't.

[PJE]

But then aren't developers forced to write to the different API's again? I'm all for new R&D, but I would rather have the OEM's not use their own proprietary CPU.

This is not a new CPU in the normal sense of things. All Sony has done is use the latest custom chip fabrication techniques to combine 'off-the-shelf' components such as the ARM926 CPU core with 8MBytes of embedded RAM, a DSP, 2D Graphic accelerator, LCD controller, and other I/O such as bluetooth, USB, etc and combined it into a single device.

Therefore from a programmmers point of view (assuming they're not using the DSP) the device should look like any other ARM based device. Sony will write the OS APIs to access the internals.

This CPU although running at only 123MHz should be very fast in the real world, as the main items of the PDA (CPU/Graphics/Video Buffers) are all on the same chip and the speed of access and width of the data busses can be optimized. I'd like to see a PocketPC using this device, but I'm not holding my breath.

Samsung is doing similar things in the PocketPC CPU arena. Combining the main silicon components into a single device has big speed/price/power consumption advantages.

[PPCRules]

I find this interesting, and wonder: If Sony is getting fed up with relying on others for their semiconductor components, how much longer will they put up with the Palm OS?
Either they have to get everything they want from PalmSource (which probably is happening), or they will need to takeover the Palm OS or go elsewhere. I understand that Palm(Source) lets licencees have great liberties with adding their own changes, but as Sony continues to push new innovations so hard, they will eventually get ahead of Palm OS.

[ConceptVBS]

Samsung is doing similar things in the PocketPC CPU arena. Combining the main silicon components into a single device has big speed/price/power consumption advantages.

The Samsung S3C series dont just apply to Pocket PCs, it also supports Linux, Palm and Symbian.

[Massman82]

I find this interesting, and wonder: If Sony is getting fed up with relying on others for their semiconductor components, how much longer will they put up with the Palm OS?
Either they have to get everything they want from PalmSource (which probably is happening), or they will need to takeover the Palm OS or go elsewhere. I understand that Palm(Source) lets licencees have great liberties with adding their own changes, but as Sony continues to push new innovations so hard, they will eventually get ahead of Palm OS.

I am pretty sure that PalmSource will incorporate a lot of the stuff that Sony develops into their OS and will let other licensees use it. There is some policy about this but I just can't remember it.