MOBLIN ZONE

“We wanted to deliver a basic computing solution that combines affordability and sleek design,” said Jeff DeMuth, Product Marketing at Intel.  “Nettops free up desk space.”

There are three general types of designs:  The All-in-One which includes all computing components and the monitor in a single package, the Mini-ITX, a mini version of a PC tower based on the industry specification, and custom designs. Custom designs will target multiple market segments, ranging from small, stylish designs targeting consumers, to a thin client for business environments.

None of the formats have been designated to a specific market segment, although DeMuth did say an example of a custom design might be targeted at a consumer looking for a small, stylish box or a thin client in a business environment.  He sees all types of nettops being adopted across multiple market segments.

Low cost nettops mean big opportunities.  According to market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) desktops priced less than $400 are expected to grow at a 20 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and form factors smaller than 20 liters (20L) are expected to represent approximately 40 percent of the sub $400 market by 2012.

Intel is targeting this sweet spot with the goal of fueling the worldwide adoption of nettops.

“There is a form factor migration toward innovative designs in the desktop market,” said DeMuth.  “One good example of innovation is the All-in-One which has a [compact] chassis.  The Atom processor architecture helps by expanding the opportunity for  the design of such devices to lower price points.”

Although the U.S. market is obviously mature, significant growth is expected to come from emerging markets such as Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and India.  In fact, those three countries represent 65 percent of the desktop growth in emerging markets worldwide, according to Intel’s estimates.

DeMuth said the lower price point of nettops will appeal to first-time PC buyers as well as more mature adopters who want to purchase additional devices or PCs for their homes.

“It’s a great device for kids’ rooms, kitchens and other areas as a complementary device for web surfing, finding recipes and other basic PC activities,” he said.

In emerging markets, Intel has analyzed the India market looking at two subgroups within this market:  Brand-conscious owners of mobile devices who represent the traditional mature market consumer demographic and value-conscious families who have had trouble affording computers in the past or not been interested in a computer. According to the estimates the latter group of value-conscious buyers represents a total addressable market that is four times greater than its mature market counterpart.

The timing of the Pine Trail-D nettop platform delivery will be timely as phased urban and rural WiMAX deployments in India will begin in late 2009.  Nettop OEMs will use Intel’s technology to address the emerging markets and to provide access to the Internet via affordable solutions using the Intel Atom processors and Intel WiMAX technology.

Delivering low-cost desktops requires reduced bill of materials (BOM) costs.  The Pine Trail-D platform lowers platform BOM, reduces power consumption and improves performance.

Notably, the Pine Trail-D platform provides a consolidated two-chip architecture and is “fanless capable”, which reduces the package area and reduces BOM.  The two-chip design provides higher processor and graphics performance by combining the processor, graphics and memory controller on a single chip called Pineview.  This compares to the three-chip design of its predecessor, Nettop 2008 platform.  In Nettop 2008 platform, the CPU (Diamondville) was separate from the GPU and memory controller.  In both designs the I/O remains on a separate chip.  (The Pine Trail-D platform uses Tiger Point.)

The Pine Trail-D platform also reduces kit thermal design power compared to Nettop 2008 platform by more than 50 percent (15W down from 33W) and kit footprint by 70 percent (773mm2 down from 2601mm2).

“Pine Trail is continuing to reduce power and shrink designs while focusing on affordability and power,” said DeMuth.  “The integration reduces BOM, enables a smaller footprint and reduces power consumption enabling a lower cost, thermal solution.”

The fanless design is also significant because it further reduces BOM.  Intel’s fanless design enables a fanless motherboard design, fanless boundary conditions and fanless thermal solutions. 

Intel proved the viability of its fanless nettop design in a series of tests, one of which was presented at IDF. 

In the IDF fanless feasibility study, the design targets were established for the Pineview processor power.  The dual core thermal design power (TDP) was 13W and the usage-based scenario power which included content consumption and Internet usage applications was 11.7W.  The motherboard design consisted of a small form factor mini-ITX motherboard and a large processor heatsink keep-out zone (KOZ) which was optimized for cost-effective extrusion heatsinks.

Pin fin extrusion and “tumbleweed” extrusion heatsinks were both tested using vertical and horizontal system orientations.  (It should be noted that the KOZ was vertically aligned with gravity in the vertical system orientation.)

In this study, both the pin fin and tumbleweed heatsinks met the 13W TDP requirements in vertical orientation but in horizontal orientation only the pin fin heatsink met the lower usage scenario power requirements. 

The results of the proof-of-concept are significant because the thermal solution cost savings are dramatic.  The fanless heatsink design when compared to the Nettop 2008 platform, can provide 30 to 50 percent cost reductions if a system fan was used previously, and 50 – 100 percent reductions if a fan heatsink was used before using a fanless heatsink design. 

It’s important to note that fanless system thermal performance can be optimized with chassis venting.

“Fanless systems require more venting on the chassis,” said Ketan Shah, principal engineer at Intel.  “We tried bottom, top, left side and right-side venting and we found as the vent area increased, the internal temperatures are reduced.  Our overall intent was to give guidance on how venting would help to regulate temperature.”

The Pine Trail-D Platform is targeted by Moblin.  There are already 19 compliant Moblin v2.0 OSV distributions worldwide. 

Collectively, the combination of hardware and software means exciting user experiences will be available soon in the form of stylish new products that make basic computing available to the masses while lowering the BOM.

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­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Lisa Morgan is an independent high tech management and marketing consultant who creates content and provides commentary to print and broadcast media.