Inside Canmore: Intel plugs x86 into TVs

Chip shows x86 giant's growth as an SoC designer SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Intel Corp.'s first x86-based chip for consumer electronics is looking pretty darn good, and the next one could be hard to beat. The CE 3100, aka Canmore, represents an initiative that speaks to everything from Intel's growing system-on-chip capabilities to its drive toward Internet TV, a concept that has left many pioneers dead by the roadside. The new chip sports a 3,000 Dhrystone MIPS x86 core, three DDR2 memory channels and a graphics block from Imagination Technologies capable of spitting out 13 million polygons a second in a chip dissipating less than 10W. And that's using 90nm process technology and a three-year-old notebook PC core. The chip comes with a full software stack and reference design for use in Blu-Ray players as well as set-tops and... [read full story]