Intel shows Medfield SoC for smartphones, Android supported

Intel's first attempt at a SoC for smartphones, Moorestown, did not go so well. Now they are showing it successor, called Medfield, brings major improvements to the platform as a whole. Intel even showed an Android prototype phone, powered by Moorestown.

The Medfield SoC will use a new manufacturing process - 32nm. In Medfield the CPU and chipset will be integrated into a single chip, while Moorestown used two separate chips - CPU (45nm) and chipset (65nm).

All these changes reduce the size of the SoC and more importantly, improves performance and power usage. Intel claims that Medfield is the most efficient architecture in the world and that it offers the longest usage time. Standby is also competitive, says Intel.

Slideshows detailing the advantages of Medfield

Medfield is sampling to Intel's partners and should be ready to ship to manufacturers by the end of this year.

Intel confirmed that a Medfield-powered phone will ship, there was even a phone shown off on stage - yes a real phone with an Atom core inside. Unfortunately they didn't say what it was, probably just a prototype (something by Aava maybe?).

Check out this video to see the phone along with an interesting size comparison between Medfield and Moorestown.

As for wireless modems (the thing responsible for communicating with the cell network), Intel will be using a separate chip for now. They recently bought Infineon's modem business so they might eventually integrate the modem into the SoC. They already have a 2G/3G/LTE multimode modem announced that should start shipping in the second half of 2012.

Source 1, Source 2, Source 3