Intel's Second Medfield Chip Comes to Light

Intel's Medfield chips still haven't won the company any fame on the mobile consumer electronics device market, but promotion efforts aren't waning, with a second chip on the way. 

Medfield is the codename given to Intel's latest series of Atom central processing units (CPUs), of which the Atom Z2460 was the first to appear. 

The second one, called Atom Z2610, has now made its existence known, even if indirectly. 

VR-Zone has the information, but the so-called spec sheet does not paint the upcoming item as any different from the Z2460. 

Measuring 12 x 12 mm, it boasts a POP (Package-on-Package) chip package and a maximum clock speed of 1.6 GHz. 

Speaking of clock frequencies, the single-channel 32-bit LPDDR2 memory supported by the Medfield can work at 800 MHz. 

Not only that, but the PowerVR SGX540 graphics is also available, with its own clock of 400 MHz. Consequently, 1080p30 video encoding is fully supported. 

Here arises the one and only clear difference compared to the Z2460: the Z2610 is (probably) going to operate at max speed all the time. 

The former, during normal operation, runs at around 1.3 GHz, while the 1.6 GHz mark is achieved only for short periods of time, during a burst state. 

The method is similar to the Turbo Boost technology of the chips utilized by desktops and notebooks. 

The reason why Z2160 will function at a faster clock is that, in a tablet, it is easier to implement a strong cooling mechanism compared to phones. 

As part of this distinction between the Medfields, the Z2460 has a minimum clock of 100 MHz, but the Z2610 can only drop to 600 MHz, according to VR-Zone. 

For this reason (inability to power down enough during idle times), it won't do that well in phones and probably will never be adopted by any smartphone company. 

Medifield tablets could appear at Computex 2012, in June, but the first ones should show up earlier during Q2.

Posted in: Hardware, Preview