In a recent interview Nvidia Chairman Jen-Hsun Huang offered harsh criticism of Intel's Moorestown processors, saying that they can't deliver much in terms of power savings and that they weren't suited for small devices, such as mobile phones. In fact, Huang compared Intel's chip to an elephant, adding that it could be put on a diet, but that it would still be an elephant, albeit it might squeeze into its old prom dress.

Of course we did not have to wait long for an answer from Santa Clara. Intel Senior VP Anand Chandrasekher was more than happy to oblige, saying that Huang should get his facts straight and check his math. He went on to say that Intel could hit the power consumption requirements for smartphones if it chose to do so.

"It is not a matter of a lack of design ingenuity. It is simply a matter of focus and psychology. Up until now, we didn't target the power levels of the smartphone using x86," Chandrasekher said.

He stressed that Moorestown is merely a starting point for Intel and that next generation Mefield processors will deliver a lot more in terms of power consumption. Moorestown is a 45nm part, but Intel will churn out Medfields in 32nm, which will allow engineers to come up with more designs that could fit a variety of power consumption envelopes.

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