Intel to slash power consumption on Ivy Bridge chip
Chip giant plans to make Ivy Bridge more power efficient than the versions that are currently used in the MacBook Air and Windows 8 ultrabooks. — Intel is on a mission to cut the power consumption of its chips. But that's not only future silicon.
Context & Ripple Effects
Intel's power-efficiency push is a decade-long arc, not a new one: the company was already promising faster chips that use less power back in 2007, and it built the ultraslim laptop category on that promise with Sandy Bridge chips for ultraslim laptops in June 2011. The current generation, formally launched in May 2012 with slightly revised ultrabook requirements, powers both the MacBook Air and the Windows 8 ultrabook wave.
What's notable about this announcement is the target: rather than waiting for future silicon, Intel says it will cut power consumption on Ivy Bridge itself — the chip already shipping in the thinnest machines on the market. That sits alongside its September 2012 Clover Trail Atom launch, which promised ARM-like battery life for Windows 8 tablets, and shows Intel fighting the ARM threat on two fronts at once. The story traveled widely, picked up by eight outlets including VentureBeat, Mashable, and LAPTOP Magazine within a day.
First-order effects
- PC makers building ultrabooks and Air-class machines around Ivy Bridge get a more efficient part without a platform redesign, letting them chase thinner chassis or longer battery life on the same roadmap.
- Apple's MacBook Air and Windows 8 ultrabook vendors both draw from the same improved silicon, so the efficiency gain lands on both sides of the Windows-versus-OS X thin-laptop contest simultaneously.
Second-order effects
- A more efficient Ivy Bridge narrows the battery-life gap Intel's Clover Trail Atom was built to close against ARM-based Windows 8 tablets, tightening Intel's own product-line positioning between tablet and notebook silicon.
- Rival chipmakers competing for the same ultrabook sockets face a moving target: Intel improving shipped parts mid-cycle raises the efficiency bar that any alternative platform must clear to win design wins.
Third-order effects
- If Intel keeps tuning already-shipped silicon between architecture generations, power-per-watt — not clock speed — becomes the headline spec that decides laptop and tablet design wins, pressuring the whole industry to compete on efficiency.
- The pattern points toward convergence of notebook and tablet platforms: as x86 parts approach ARM-like battery life, the distinction between an ultrabook and a tablet-with-keyboard erodes into a single thin, fanless device category.
The trend: Mobile computing is shifting from a race for raw performance to a race for power efficiency, with Intel using mid-cycle silicon improvements to defend x86's place in thin devices against ARM.