The mobile & computing world is converging. There is growing segment of consumer devices called smart-books or net-books. This is the only market segment which is growing rapidly in this recessionary time.

So how does one define smart-books? These are devices with GHz processor built into it; so computation capability is at par with notebooks. The screen size can vary from QVGA to SGA with advanced multimedia capabilities. The most important differentiating factor is power consumption of these devices. It’s a low power device where battery can last for about 8-10 hrs for watching Hi-Def Video. The form factor is just right to fit into your pocket. Who would not like to have such devices? It’s a boon when you are flying trans-atlantics or trans-pacific where you can have personal in flight entertainment with no need to charge batter for 10 hrs. These devices will also be instant-on devices where you can do basic tasks like browsing and e-mail. It will have Wi-Fi capability as well as over the air modem capability to browse internet at high speeds wherever you are in the world.

This is a lucrative segment & every IC design company, Software company & OEMs across the globe want to participate in it.

Let’s talk about what key chips are required for this smart-book and what OS is best for such devices.

Talking of chips the main component of this smart-book is applications processor & baseband processor. The job of the applications processor is to support various applications running on this smart-book like video, games, navigation etc. The baseband processor is responsible for managing over the air communications interface like WCDMA, HSDPA or CDMA-2000 1xEVDO. This processor will manage the voice & data applications.

Baseband processor is an involved task & not many companies would like to explore it as it is technology intensive & one need expertise in it. Leading companies in baseband processor are Qualcomm, TI, Infineon technologies. Even TI has decided to quit this area & would like to focus solely on its OMAP applications processor.

The real competition & differentiation is in applications processor. Intel wants to certainly be part of this. So far Intel is not successful in providing processors for mobile devices & is certainly feeling the heat to diversify from it saturating PC business. Intel indeed has edge compared to others by providing a processor with ecosystem of software & applications along with it. It is already shipping its x86 based “Atom” processor with speed range of over 1GHZ.  It runs windows operating system & has proven applications running on it. Currently Intel has 100% market share in net-book area. But the competition is not that behind. Qualcomm has started shipping its “Snapdragon” processor with 1GHz processor speed & it runs linux operating system. Qualcomm’s processor is based on ARM architecture which is different from x86 based architecture. The advantage is clearly with respect to power consumption. ARM based architecture is light with power consumption. Qualcomm’s processor burns 500mW active power while current Atom processor burns 2W power. That’s a big difference for similar performance. So smart-books using Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm will last 4-times longer than Atom based net-books before recharging. Another advantage is heat dissipation. For low power you will burn less heat & you won’t have to have fans dissipating the extra heat. This is very important for smart-books as you won’t have constant fan noise in the background bugging users & the devices will run cooler. TI has its OMAP processor which is currently offered in the upwards of 600 MHz speed range. TI processors are also ARM core based. The other important chips in the smart-books would be WI-FI, blue-tooth &GPS chips. Many companies like CSR, Marvell, Qualcomm provide these chips. OEMs can have individual chips for separate functions or integrated SoC chips from companies like Qualcomm. Qualcomm’s MSM solution provides baseband processor, applications processor with integrated blue-tooth, A-GPS (assisted GPS) in single SoC chip. This hugely saves bill of material & reduces overall cost of the product. Display is another important factor for giving low cost, low power smart-book solution. There are many up-coming low power display technologies coming into market. Traditional LCD based display burns 30% power in handheld devices like cell phones. It’s being replaced by LED or OLED based solutions. MEMS based display is another promising solution wherein the display can retain the state without a need to refresh & the display only needs to be refreshed when the information changes.  

The other important puzzle of this device is the operating system. Currently there are two camps. One camp is traditional x86 based windows operating system from Microsoft & the other is open source OS like linux or Google’s Android operating system. The first camp has proven eco-system from PC business with known applications support. Google’s Android OS is promising & it is boon for second camp wherein application developers can have similar applications developed. The second camp touts the advantage of low power over windows based systems.

The OEMs clearly understand the importance of low power. That’s certainly desired, wherein user doesn’t need to charge his device for days. OEMS may actually provide both OS choice to users. Whenever the user wants to do word processing applications he can switch to windows based system & for most part wherein user is interested in web browsing, e-mails he/she can choose linux based platform, providing instant ON capability. The user doesn’t need to boot windows system. Cloud computing is also promising in the future, wherein the user can have access to word processing applications over web with those applications residing in remote servers.

Currently these net-books sell at the price point of upwards of $400, but with so many competing devices coming into market this fall the price point of these devices will come down to around $200. That would be the right entry point for millions of consumers worldwide.

It would be interesting to see how Wintel camp will compete with Android-Qualcomm camp in this mobile segment.