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@ 2008/07/24Intel’s Atom processor is quite possibly Intel’s most important microarchitecture, yet it is hardly discussed - mostly because current implementations are hardly interesting. Today the Atom processor is little more than a very low power x86 chip that performs a lot like a 1.2GHz Pentium M, it’s not exactly setting any speed records.
We’ve already detailed the Atom architecture in depth here, to recap it’s a 2-issue, in-order architecture with SMT support. The goal for Atom has always been to be able to deliver the performance of a 4-year-old Pentium M, in a 1W power envelope. As we found in our initial performance investigation of Atom, Intel was able to sort of meet this goal. At 1.6GHz, the Atom performs somewhere between a 800MHz Pentium M and a 1.6GHz Pentium M - we roughly approximated that to be the performance of a 1.2GHz PM.
We’ve already detailed the Atom architecture in depth here, to recap it’s a 2-issue, in-order architecture with SMT support. The goal for Atom has always been to be able to deliver the performance of a 4-year-old Pentium M, in a 1W power envelope. As we found in our initial performance investigation of Atom, Intel was able to sort of meet this goal. At 1.6GHz, the Atom performs somewhere between a 800MHz Pentium M and a 1.6GHz Pentium M - we roughly approximated that to be the performance of a 1.2GHz PM.
