[geeks] iPad - a 'Miss' for me I'm afraid

[nate at portents.com]

> To their (only tiny) credit it's a SoC not a CPU but the boundaries, as
> you stated, are a little blurry.

Beyond blurry - I'd argue the lines are unimportant.  Intel's Clarkdale
'CPUs' are already getting pretty close to a 'SoC', what with their
in-package GPUs + memory controllers.

Memory controllers are on-die, PCIe controllers are on-die for some CPUs,
GPUs will be on-die in the near future, and it wouldn't surprise me to see
most of the rest of the 'chipset' end up there in the near future.  The
SoC/CPU distinction is only useful for system designers to talk about
system build costs and thermal/design profiles.  To use it as any sort of
back-handed negative was just silly on the part of the original article.

> by the sounds of it they just did a good job of wiring together some stuff
> from ARM. Still, it'll probably work really well...

Intel 'wired' a PowerVR 3D GPU from Imagination Technologies into their
Poulsbo Atom chipset, and nobody jumped down Intel's throat for it...
Intel GPUs are poor performers (sometimes broken-by-bad-design
performers), and I don't blame Apple (or Intel, in the case of Poulsbo)
from staying away from them.

- Nate