The Nvidia chips are about 10 times smaller than Intel's Atom chipset and can run multimedia content for 26 hours. MID is a general name for computers that can be used for internet surfing and are small enough to fit in a pocket.
The market has a potential of more than one billion mobile phones and more than 200 million smartphones and connected PDAs.
Rajesh Goenka, head (marketing), Nvidia, says: "We expect to see media players, MIDs and GPS units using our chipset by the end of 2008, followed by smartphones in quarter 1, 2009. Apple's iPhone has shown that videos and multimedia can be popular on handhelds. We hope to drive our growth from this emerging demand."
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is also planning to take on chip-giant Intel with a new platform built solely for notebooks. Vamsi Krishna, senior technical manager, AMD India, says: "AMD is targeting the PC market used to play movies and other entertainment content." Krishna adds: "PC makers Acer, Fujitsu, NEC and Toshiba, among others, have signed up to make notebooks powered by Puma chips."
Intel, on its part, is lining up chips that enable a host of new features on small laptops and handheld internet devices.
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In a statement, Sean Maloney, Intel's executive vice-president and general manager (sales and marketing), says: "With the emergence of the netbook category this year, Intel believes that this will be the first year that more mobile computing devices will be sold than desktop computers. The company is delivering a variety of high-performance, low-power processors and other advanced computer technologies to help the industry address this opportunity with devices at all price points."
According to Gartner analysts: "It is likely the battle between the two chipmakers will result in a price war, helping to keep down prices for new PCs and handhelds." No matter which company comes out on top in the chip battle, consumers will win.