prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: How are smartphones and tablets different from a technical perspective?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 1: The future of mobile CPUs, part 1: Today’s fork in the road | Ars Technica
2013 may be a big year for the evolution of smartphones and tablets 
Mobile computing's rise from niche market to the mainstream is among the most significant technological trends in our lifetimes  And to a large extent, it's been driven by the bounty of Moore’s Law—the rule that transistor density doubles every 24 months  Initially, most mobile devices relied on highly specialized hardware to meet stringent power and size budgets  But with so many transistors available, devices inevitably grew general-purpose capabilities  Most likely, that wasn't even the real motivation  The initial desire was probably to reduce costs by creating a more flexible software ecosystem with better re-use and faster time to market  As such, the first smartphones were very much a novelty, and it took many years before the world realized the potential of such devices  Apple played a major role by creating innovative smartphones that consumers craved and quickly adopted 
To some extent, this is where we still stand today  Smartphones are still (relatively) expensive and primarily interesting to the developed world  But over the next 10 years, this too will change  As Moore’s Law rolls on, the cost of a low-end smartphone will decline  At some point, the incremental cost will be quite minimal and many feature phones of today will be supplanted by smartphones  A $650 unsubsidized phone is well beyond the reach of most of the world compared to a $20 feature phone, but a $30 to $40 smartphone would naturally be very popular 
In this grand progression, 2013 will certainly be a significant milestone for mobile devices, smartphones and beyond  It's likely to be the first year in which tablets out-ship notebooks in the US  And in the coming years, this will lead to a confluence of high-end tablets and ultra-mobile notebooks as the world figures out how these devices co-exist, blend, hybridize, and/or merge 
Against this backdrop, in this two-part series, we'll explore the major trends and evolution for mobile SoCs  More importantly, we'll look to where the major vendors are likely going in the next several years 
Tablet and phone divergence
While phones and tablets are mobile devices that often share a great deal of software, it's becoming increasingly clear the two are very different products  These two markets have started to diverge and will continue doing so over time 
From a technical perspective, smartphones are far more compact and power constrained  Smartphone SoCs are limited to around 1W, both by batteries and by thermal dissipation  The raison d’etre of a smartphone is connectivity, so a cellular modem is an absolute necessity  For the cost sensitive-models that make up the vast majority of the market, the modem is integrated into the SoC itself  High-end designs favor discrete modems with a greater power budget instead  The main smartphone OSes today are iOS and Android, though Windows is beginning to make an appearance (perhaps with Linux or BlackBerry on the horizon)  Just as importantly, phone vendors like HTC must pass government certification and win the approval of carriers  There is very much a walled-garden aspect, where carriers control which devices can be attached to their networks, and in some cases devices can only be sold through a certain carrier  The business model places consumers quite far removed from the actual hardware 
In contrast, tablets are far more akin to the PC both technically and economically  The power budget for tablet SoCs is much greater, up to 4W for a passively cooled device and as high as 7-8W for systems with fans  This alone means there is a much wider range of tablet designs than smartphones  Moreover, the default connectivity for tablets is Wi-Fi rather than a cellular modem  The vast majority of tablets do not have cellular modems, and even fewer customers actually purchase a wireless data plan  As a result, cellular modems are almost always optional discrete components of the platform  The software ecosystem is relatively similar, with Microsoft, Apple, and Google OSes available  Because tablets eschew cellular modems, the time to market is faster, and they are much more commonly sold directly to consumers rather than through carriers  In terms of usage models, tablets are much more PC-like, with reasonable-sized screens that make games and media more attractive 
Looking forward, these distinctions will likely become more pronounced  Many tablets today use high-end smartphone SoCs, but the difference in power targets and expected performance is quite large  As the markets grow in volume, SoCs will inevitably bifurcate to focus on one market or the other  Even today, Apple is doing so, with the A6 for phones and the larger A6X for tablets  Other vendors may need to wait a few years to have the requisite volume, but eventually the two markets will be clearly separate 
Horizontal business model evolution
Another aspect of the mobile device market that is currently in flux and likely to change in the coming years is the business model for the chip and system vendors  Currently, Apple is the only company truly pursuing a vertically integrated model, where all phones and tablets are based on Apple’s own SoC designs and iOS  The tight integration between hardware and software has been a huge boon for Apple, and it has yielded superb products 
Samsung is one of the few others companies that takes a vertically integrated approach to phones and tablets, although in truth its strategy seems to be ambivalent on that point  Unlike Apple, Samsung’s SoCs are readily available to third parties, and some Samsung devices, such as the S7562 Galaxy S Duos, use SoCs from competitors  More recently though, there has been a trend of Samsung devices using Samsung SoCs, at least for the premier products  For the moment, Samsung’s approach is best characterized as a hybrid, particularly as the company lacks a bespoke OS 
The rest of the major SoC vendors (e g , Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia, TI, Mediatek, etc ) have stayed pretty far away from actual mobile devices  These companies tend to focus on horizontal business models that avoid competing with customers or suppliers 
In the long term, mobile devices are likely to evolve similarly to the PC and favor a horizontal business model  The real advantage is one of flexibility; as costs drop and the market expands, it will be increasingly necessary for vendors like HTC to offer a wide range of phones based on radically different SoCs  While a vertically integrated company like Apple can focus and maintain leadership in a specific (and highly lucrative) niche, it would be very difficult to expand in many growing areas of the market  The differences between an iPhone 6 and a $20 feature phone are tremendous and would be very difficult for a single company to bridge 
However, SoC vendors will attempt to reap the benefits of vertical integration by providing complete reference platforms to OEMs  Conceptually, this is a form of "optional" system integration, where the phone vendor or carrier can get the entire platform from the SoC supplier  This has the principal advantages of reducing time to market while also providing a baseline quality and experience for consumers  Currently, this approach has mostly been tested in emerging markets, but it's likely to become more common over time  There is a crucial distinction between reference platforms and vertical integration  Namely, OEMs can always choose to customize a platform to differentiate, and the SoC vendor avoids dealing with consumers directly  Typically, most of the customization is in terms of software on top of a base operating system 
Quote:Moreover, that will make the transition to a 10nm node even more difficult, as the foundries will have to move from 20nm interconnects to 10nm interconnects and skip a generation The advances in technology lately allowing components on such a small scale to even be envisioned, much less planned for, are truly amazing 
Off topic: show
I present the first generation 'non-technical' rock:
I don't think your horizontal market development theory is supported by facts  Samsung and Apple are more vertically oriented than their competition, for starters  I know this article is narrowly focused on the hardware, but MS and Intel getting into hardware, Amazon getting into hardware, Google buying Moto, this is all vertical integration  How can you support the idea that this trend will be reversed with no real justification? I'm sure mobile chips will continue to specialize, but I don't think this means what you think it means  Automobile companies started making their own engines and with rare exceptions, never went back to being more horizontal  Same with retail and their store brands  Same with cloud companies and their servers  Same with mobile companies and their OSs  The horizontal market of PCs created by long-lasting standards and loose hegemony is the exception, not the norm 
Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?
I'm not so sure about several things:1- Moore's law's relevance  Moore's Law is about ICs  ICs are not as big a part of mobile computers as they are of desktops, even of laptops: screens, batteries, radios are a huge part of tablets' and phones' costs, as opposed to the bare SoC + RAM 2- The tablet vs phone dichotomy  For some reason (probably price insensitivity due to subsidies), Phones have a tendency to be more powerful than Tablets, ie phone SoCs are more than good enough for tablets  Since the OS and peripherals are the same, it makes more sense to design and build just one type of SoC, and just disable the phone-modem part of it (even the other radios are still required: BT, Wifi, GPS   ), same as Intel disable cache and cores for their entry-level CPUs  Once you're fabbing a SoC, it makes more sense to make more of the same than to setup a separate run of a cut-down SoC on an older process, unless volumes are huge  We might still be getting previous-generation, well amortized SoCs in cheaper tablets, though 3- On the contrary, I see a tablet and phone convergence (the ugly phablet)  I'm patiently waiting for the new 6"+ phones to replace my Nook Color and Galaxy Note 1 with a single device 4- The advantage of diversity ? Software is becoming ever more important than hardware  Multiplying SoCs means multiplying product development costs, making support and updates more difficult    Again, unless volumes are huge, OEMs are probaly better off going the way of the car industry and using modular "platforms" housed in different chassis with various screen sizes, keyboards, radios, digitizers   I'm wondering why the "single device" trend does not figure in your analysis  Is it stillborn ? Does it have no impact nor dependency on/with SoCs ?
Samsung has its own bespoke OS: Bada and it is used on an extensive line of devices  I think there are numbers somewhere that it outsold Windows Phone 7 for a time 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?First mover advantage 
SoC? System on a Chip I guess?
You're way off on the Moore's Law/cost of smartphones point  The processors used in today's high-end smartphones are already cheap, around $25  And there are less expensive options if you want a lower end product  In fact, the hardware in the whole smartphone is relatively cheap  Analyst's estimate the Z10's materials cost around $160, the iPhone 5 around $140  They're using expensive glass and metals, then there's the battery, memory, etc  which means the processor is a small factor of the cost And then there's the jump from $140 in materials to the unsubsidized costs  The reason these phones cost $650 is because of the high margins these companies are able to get and the high cost of hardware design and/or software development  But the point is that making the processors 4 times better/cheaper isn't going to change the economics of the smartphone  What will change the economics is commoditized designs and software and cheaper materials all around  Then you'll have a $50 smartphone that's decent 
Last edited by ggeezz on Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:17 am
bigterp wrote:SoC? System on a Chip I guess?Yup 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries 
Quote:Currently, the only products using 3D integration are FPGAs from Xilinx,Doesn't Sony use it in the PS Vita? I thought I read somewhere that they had the CPU, main memory (2 dies) and video memory, so 4 dies in total, sitting on top of each other all on the same chip 
renoX wrote:gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries Exactly and I would clarify that it's all about margins, the difference between what it costs to make a chip and what it sells for  The margins for desktop and server processors is huge because a) the whole product is expensive so $200 to $1000 for the chip is acceptable, and b) Intel has huge advantages in that space and little competition So Intel can afford to do the R&D to stay ahead of the curve and keep their position  When your smartphone chip sells for $25 you can't do the R&D to leapfrog a company that sells Xeons for $1000 and Core i5's for $200 
I am happy to see Kanter here at Ars, I like his writing and he maintains Real World Tech, where Linus Torvalds often shows up to comment on CPU arch and other interesting topics 
ggeezz wrote:renoX wrote:gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries Exactly and I would clarify that it's all about margins, the difference between what it costs to make a chip and what it sells for  The margins for desktop and server processors is huge because a) the whole product is expensive so $200 to $1000 for the chip is acceptable, and b) Intel has huge advantages in that space and little competition So Intel can afford to do the R&D to stay ahead of the curve and keep their position  When your smartphone chip sells for $25 you can't do the R&D to leapfrog a company that sells Xeons for $1000 and Core i5's for $200 Spot on Intel are able to piggyback other development efforts off the highly lucrative mainstream x86 market which generates the huge sums of money to fund their amazing fab technology The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art 
solomonrex wrote:I don't think your horizontal market development theory is supported by facts  Samsung and Apple are more vertically oriented than their competition, for starters  I know this article is narrowly focused on the hardware, but MS and Intel getting into hardware, Amazon getting into hardware, Google buying Moto, this is all vertical integration  How can you support the idea that this trend will be reversed with no real justification? I'm sure mobile chips will continue to specialize, but I don't think this means what you think it means  Automobile companies started making their own engines and with rare exceptions, never went back to being more horizontal  Same with retail and their store brands  Same with cloud companies and their servers  Same with mobile companies and their OSs  The horizontal market of PCs created by long-lasting standards and loose hegemony is the exception, not the norm Yea, each year Amazon, MS, Apple and Google look more and more the same 
Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Intel's called Chipzilla for a reason up
Lagrange wrote:The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art I think the processing is a bigger advantage than many realize  If Intel can stay ahead in process design - which this article seems to indicate - they should have a major advantage  All else being equal a 14nm chip should be significantly faster and more efficient than the same chip at 22nm  Add in the fact that yields increase geometrically - you can fit a lot more 14nm chips on a given wafer size vs 22nm (or 32nm for the other manufacturers ) and you have a very appealing proposition  And then add in the fact that Intel actually has a pretty good graphics stack and IP  It's not a sure thing by any means, but I suspect ARM may have just prodded a sleeping giant edit: Also worth noting, Intel, TSMC, and Samsung are the only manufacturers who are building out 450nm wafers  This will increase yields dramatically  Of course Samsung and TSMC will build ARM out, but it definitely puts quite a bit of pressure on all other manufacturers  As the article mentions Intel and Samsung are the only ones who control production top to bottom, and Samsung must share some of the benefits with ARM 
As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP 
Last edited by paul5ra on Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:06 am
introiboad wrote:I am happy to see Kanter here at Ars, I like his writing and he maintains Real World Tech, where Linus Torvalds often shows up to comment on CPU arch and other interesting topics Indeed  Most tech writing in this area is atrocious  This piece is one of the few well informed articles I've read in a long time 
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The word you're looking for is Haswell, as far as I know 
Mabsark
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Probably a mix of a lot of things  One big thing was during this recession, Intel was the ONLY fab company that didn't scale back their R&D  That alone gave Intel a large advantage Intel has almost always been ahead  One of the reasons could be that Intel works with much higher margins than many of the commodity companies like Samsung and TSMC Outside of the P4 flop and some of the monopolistic abuses, Intel has typically been selling to high end customers that are willing to pay a premium for "the best" Intel has a large benefit of having a relatively "good name" when it comes to CPUs, so they can effectively charge a brand-name premium I'm sure there are other reasons, and probably better reasons, but these are the main ones that I think of 
Mabsark wrote:Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product That's true as long as most people are still buying both a tablet and a laptop when each needs to be replaced  I think the assumption is that, as you say, the tablet market will saturate, with people just replacing existing ones, but the desktop/laptop market could decrease much farther than that, if most people stop replacing them at all  I'm not sure of the likelihood of that, but I think that's where this idea comes from 
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The upcoming Haswell chip is showing to consume 1/3 the power of IvyBridge at peak, consumes 1/20th the power at idle, all the while maintaining Identical or better performance This chip should actually compete with ARM CPUs on both power/performance and idle I am expecting a large war 
Apple once again is dictating the performance in the mobile industry  Nice to see others being able to keep the pace, as well 
paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then Yeah, and most of the innovation in the automobile industry came about before Henry Ford came into the business  Doesn't change the fact that cars would probably have been an asterisk in the history books under "toys for rich people" if it weren't for him The same applies to to mobile computing for Apple, Samsung, et al 
SheldonRoss wrote:Lagrange wrote:The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art I think the processing is a bigger advantage than many realize  If Intel can stay ahead in process design - which this article seems to indicate - they should have a major advantage  All else being equal a 14nm chip should be significantly faster and more efficient than the same chip at 22nm  Add in the fact that yields increase geometrically - you can fit a lot more 14nm chips on a given wafer size vs 22nm (or 32nm for the other manufacturers ) and you have a very appealing proposition  And then add in the fact that Intel actually has a pretty good graphics stack and IP  My point was that Intel might have a one or two process advantage over the rest of the industry at the cutting edge but that doesn't mean that they can afford to manufacture on those processes for very low margin parts  If the SoC market becomes increasingly commoditised, there isn't going to be the money to justify making them in a state of the art fab Remember that one of the big selling points of Itanium was that it would make use of process advantages that were effectively paid for by the mainstream x86 market  That didn't quite work out in practice and Itanium processors were often well behind Xeons in process technology 
paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM 
Last edited by melgross on Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:13 am
Mark Havel wrote:ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The word you're looking for is Haswell, as far as I know If tablets move into the $100-200 range, is there going to be room for Haswell?So long as there is a higher-end tablet market, then Haswell will be able to shine, but it's going to be a much more powerful and costly part than the sort of ARM based hardware that often runs tablets  If we see a race to the bottom where price is the dominant motivator behind purchases, then a high performance SoC will struggle to make its mark 
melgross wrote:paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM Of course I realise ARM IP has indeed been a major driving factor too (though only one if several architectures before ARM became dominant), though I see ARM's influence on the mobile industry as having nothing to do with modern day Apple and only one small piece of the puzzle  My point is that the hard electrical engineering, mathematics, DSP, semiconductor physics/chemistry, RF engineering, analogue design, CAD etc  that make modern telecommunications possible has very little to do with the fashion companies who consumers (and unfortunately much of the tech media) associate with it and give the credit (though in this respect Samsung does deserve a bit more credit for their work on NAND flash and displays)  The industry simply would not exist TODAY without the overwhelming horizontal integration that already dominates 
Quote:In the long term, mobile devices are likely to evolve similarly to the PC and favor a horizontal business model  The real advantage is one of flexibility; as costs drop and the market expands, it will be increasingly necessary for vendors like HTC to offer a wide range of phones based on radically different SoCs  You don't mention in the article that each SoC necessarily requires a bit of parallel dev work unlike the PC  In the PC world there is a standard BIOS and HW architecture that allows for pluggable designs  On a highly integrated SoC this is untrue  HTC suffers because it has to support radically different SoCs, their drivers and boot loaders, etc  Quote:While a vertically integrated company like Apple can focus and maintain leadership in a specific (and highly lucrative) niche, it would be very difficult to expand in many growing areas of the market  The differences between an iPhone 6 and a $20 feature phone are tremendous and would be very difficult for a single company to bridge It's only difficult because Apple chooses to ignore that market, not because they can't  If they can release a $99 Apple TV, they can surely cobble together a $20 feature phone if they chose to eschew 8GB of NAND, BT, WiFi, a specialized dock connector, LTE, and their specialized processors  In other words, build the equivalent of an iPod shuffle with a horrible screen and no OS to speak of 
paul5ra wrote:melgross wrote:paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM Of course I realise ARM IP has indeed been a major driving factor too (though only one if several architectures before ARM became dominant), though I see ARM's influence on the mobile industry as having nothing to do with modern day Apple and only one piece of the puzzle  My point is that the hard electrical engineering, mathematics, DSP, semiconductor physics/chemistry, RF engineering, analogue design,etc  that make modern telecommunications possible has very little to do with the fashion companies who consumers (and unfortunately much of the tech media) associate with it and give the credit (though in this respect Samsung does deserve a bit more credit for their work on NAND flash and displays)  The industry simply would not exist TODAY without the overwhelming horizontal integration that already dominates Yes the efforts of these companies getting cellular communications standardized were immense  And the technology matured  And then they didn't do much with it  It took some youngin's to look at the problem fresh and add the UI that make today's smartphones work  As we have all seen, the moment your technology has matured is the moment you are screwed because someone else now has the opportunity to look at it as a black box and make something new  Each of those manufacturers knew that smartphones would eventually be awesome, but none of them had the UI and software design to make a truly breakout product  Imagine if Motorola would have been smart enough to buy the Android guys instead of Google  Instead, Google bought a bunch of patents on that cellular black box to try to defend it's platform And when you think about it, which consumes more man years of engineering effort per year at this point     iterating that cellular black box or developing the OS, services and apps that power today's smartphones?
Intel had better decide that they are competing in this space "for real", or they are screwed  They've already let the Atom languish for five years, during which ARM has completely caught up in performance Just like Tim Cook said, if you don't cannibalize your own markets someone else will do it for you Whether Intel will embrace that concept in time remains to be seen  Personally, I hope they don't; if Intel transforms into a chipless Fab company (like TSMC) everyone benefits 
I still think Samsung has the advantage long term because they have both the SOC and the memory products  As mentioned in the article, TSV's (Through Silicon Via's) are going to be quite a disruption  Today, people normally stack an LPDDR2 package on top of their SOC package (POP or Package On Package)  Within the LPDDR2 package, you could have a stack of DRAM die typically with wire bonding connecting the die within the package Once you more to TSV's, you can have a LOT more connections between the SOC and its DRAM's  While this is being standardized through JEDEC (http://www jedec org/category/technolog     a/3d-ics-0), Samsung has all the pieces in house to do whatever they want  You could see a 512 bit or higher bus from the SOC to the memory  The trick is that the memory and the SOC need to line up with each other when you stack them  This gives Samsung an inherent advantage This isn't just going to impact mobile either  Take a look at that JEDEC link  It also lists High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)  This is a 1024 bit bus that provides 128GBytes/s to 256GBytes/s of bandwidth to a stack of up to 8 DRAM's  Here is your processor that includes 8-16 cores and 4GBytes of really, really, fast DRAM    No DIMMs required  How many of them do you want in your server rack?If I was Intel or Apple, I would be thinking seriously about making some investments in Micron to guarantee they make some compelling DRAM's to integrate with their SOC's and processors    otherwise Samsung is going to blow them out of the water on bandwidth 
Great_Scott wrote:Intel had better decide that they are competing in this space "for real", or they are screwed  They've already let the Atom languish for five years, during which ARM has completely caught up in performance Just like Tim Cook said, if you don't cannibalize your own markets someone else will do it for you Whether Intel will embrace that concept in time remains to be seen  Personally, I hope they don't; if Intel transforms into a chipless Fab company (like TSMC) everyone benefits It's true that Atom has stood still for too long, but honestly it's pretty amazing how Atom is still competitive with current ARM chips  The Z2760 is even 32nm vs 28nm of the latest Krait and A15 chips But that's all changing with Atom moving to the tick tock schedule this year  It wouldn't even surprise me to see Apple move to Intel chips for IOS And I don't see how Intel moving to a chipless Fab company would help everyone  It certainly wouldn't help Intel 
Mabsark wrote:ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product Yes and no  I'm not sure the tablet market will saturate in a "couple of years " It may be more like 5 years  But that's a quibble Here's the real issue  Right now Apple wants you to own an iPhone AND iPad AND Macbook AND iWatch AND Apple TV  Microsoft, OTOH, is making the Surface so that you could ditch your laptop and just use a Surface  Not everyone, but some people If 5 years from now, we're in a world where a significant number of people use a Surface-type device instead of a laptop, then the PC market is going to contract significantly  Maybe some of the tablet-like devices will use moderately expensive Intel chips, but some of them are going to use cheaper chips 
GravyGraphics wrote:I still think Samsung has the advantage long term because they have both the SOC and the memory products  As mentioned in the article, TSV's (Through Silicon Via's) are going to be quite a disruption  Today, people normally stack an LPDDR2 package on top of their SOC package (POP or Package On Package)  Within the LPDDR2 package, you could have a stack of DRAM die typically with wire bonding connecting the die within the package Once you more to TSV's, you can have a LOT more connections between the SOC and its DRAM's  While this is being standardized through JEDEC (http://www jedec org/category/technolog     a/3d-ics-0), Samsung has all the pieces in house to do whatever they want  You could see a 512 bit or higher bus from the SOC to the memory  The trick is that the memory and the SOC need to line up with each other when you stack them  This gives Samsung an inherent advantage This isn't just going to impact mobile either  Take a look at that JEDEC link  It also lists High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)  This is a 1024 bit bus that provides 128GBytes/s to 256GBytes/s of bandwidth to a stack of up to 8 DRAM's  Here is your processor that includes 8-16 cores and 4GBytes of really, really, fast DRAM    No DIMMs required  How many of them do you want in your server rack?If I was Intel or Apple, I would be thinking seriously about making some investments in Micron to guarantee they make some compelling DRAM's to integrate with their SOC's and processors    otherwise Samsung is going to blow them out of the water on bandwidth Why not AMD? Last I checked they still made memory   and processors/GPUs 
Context 2: A Brief History of Benjamin Franklin's Residences on Craven Street, London: 1757 - 1775 - Journal of the American Revolution
Benjamin Franklin House, 36 Craven St, London  (Photo by Elliott Brown | Wikimedia Commons)
If one looked into Benjamin Franklin’s time on Craven Street, they might initially believe he lived at 36 Craven Street the entirety of his two stays in London based on the plethora of articles on the internet that say so  If they dug a little deeper they might read that he lived at No  27 Craven Street, previously numbered 7, but now numbered 36; or that he lived exclusively at No  7 Craven Street; or that he lived in multiple residences on Craven Street; or that he moved out of No  36 to another house on Craven Street and then moved back into No  36 the last year of his residence  What is one to believe with all of the conflicting accounts? What does the historical record have to say about Franklin’s time on Craven Street?
Figure 1  Spur Alley 1685  “A map of the parish of St Martins in the Fields, taken from ye last survey, with additions (1685)”  (© The British Library Board, Shelfmark: Maps Crace Port  13 2, Item number: 2)
Before Craven Street existed there was Spur Alley, a narrow passageway sandwiched between the Hungerford Market to the north (now Charing Cross Station) and Scotland Yard and the Northumberland House and Garden to the south  It was flanked on both ends by major thoroughfares, the Strand on the west, connecting Westminster to London by road, and the River Thames on the east, not only connecting the two cities to each other and to Southwark on the south side of the Thames, but connecting the entire metropolis to the rest of the world  Being located in the City of Westminster, Spur Alley had escaped the devastation of the Great Fire of London in 1666 leaving its wooden structures, built in the early part of seventeenth century, intact, but also in dire need of restoration or demolition  “The ratebooks show that during the last thirty years or so of their existence the houses in Spur Alley were in a very bad condition  Few of them were rated at more than a few shillings and many of them were unoccupied ”[1] The landowner, William, 5th Baron Craven, desiring to increase the profitability of his assets, tore down the derelict structures on Spur Alley around 1730 and leased the newly established lots to builders  By 1735, twenty brick houses in the Georgian style had been built on the west side and sixteen on the east side of the way now called Craven Street [2]
Figure 2  Craven Street 1746  (John Rocque London, Westminster and Southwark, First Edition 1746, Motco Enterprises Limited, motco com)
Letters to Franklin during his residence with Mrs  Margaret Stevenson, his landlady on Craven Street, were addressed rather vaguely; “Craven Street/Strand”, “Mrs  Stevensons in Craven Street”, or “Benjamin Franklin Esqr ” are but a few examples  Letters from Franklin referenced “London,” or sometimes “Cravenstreet,” but never included a number  Despite the absence of numbered addresses in Franklin’s correspondence, there was a sense of one’s place in the neighborhood based on entries in the Westminster Rate Books (tax assessments)  The Rate Books did not list house numbers during Franklin’s time there, but they did list the residents of Craven Street in a particular order that became the default numbering system for the street  Number one was associated with the first resident listed under “Craven Street” in the Rate Books and was the northernmost house on the west side of the street  The numbers increased counter-clockwise down the west side and up the east side in accordance with the list of residents  In 1748, the first year of Margaret Stevenson’s (Stevens in the Rate Books for that year) residence on Craven Street, she is listed as the twenty-seventh resident, the second house north of Court Street (later Craven Court, now Craven Passage) on the east side of the street [3]
In 1766, Parliament passed the London Paving and Lighting Act (6 Geo  3 c  26), “An act for the better paving, cleansing, and enlightening, the city of London, and the liberties thereof; and for preventing obstructions and annoyances within the same; and for other purposes therein mentioned ”[4] One of the other purposes therein mentioned was the numbering of houses  With an aim to bring order to the chaotic numbering systems or lack thereof on London streets the Act provided that “… the said commissioners … may also cause every house, shop, or warehouse, in each of the said streets, lanes, squares, yards, courts, alleys, passages, and places, to be marked or numbered, in such manner as they shall judge most proper for distinguishing the same ”[5] This was quite an undertaking that took years to accomplish  It was a decade later before numbered addresses on Craven Street in the City of Westminster appeared in The London Directory (1776)  The London Directory and its competitors were published primarily by booksellers or printers to supplement their income and were highly profitable  To say they were competitive is an understatement  “Some of the most hotly disputed struggles over copyright in the century concerned guidebooks  Many were optimistically emblazoned with a royal license and a notice that the work had been entered at Stationers’ Hall  Various struggles between rival guides intensified as the potential for profits became clear ”[6] The London Directory boldly proclaimed to contain “An ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE NAMES and PLACES of ABODE of the MERCHANTS and PRINCIPAL TRADERS of the Cities of LONDON and WESTMINSTER, the Borough of SOUTHWARK, and their Environs, with the Number affixed to each House ”[7] Kent’s Directory made a similar proclamation: “An Alphabetical LIST OF THE Names and Places of Abode OF THE DIRECTORS of COMPANIES, Persons in Public Business, MERCHANTS, and other eminent TRADERS in the Cities of London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark WITH THE NUMBERS as they are affixed to their Houses agreeable to the late Acts of Parliament ”[8] Mrs  Stevenson wasn’t included in the directories because she didn’t meet the criteria of being a merchant or trader, not because she was a woman  Although it is rare to see women listed in the directories, some examples do exist [9] If Mrs  Stevenson had appeared in the directories in 1776 it would not have been on Craven Street as she had moved to Northumberland Court, a stone’s throw away, the previous year [10] A comparison of Craven Street residents whose names and addresses do appear in the directories with the same residents as they appear in the Westminster Rate Books determines if the numbering systems were congruent  For the most part they were  For example, Joseph Bond at No  30, William Rowles at No  31, Samuel Sneyd at No  32, and Jonathan Michie at No  35 in The London Directory coincide with their places of residence in the Westminster Rate Books; however, errors did occur  The 1776 edition of The London Directory lists Brown & Whiteford, wine merchants, at No  9 Craven Street while the Westminster Rate Books list them as the twenty-ninth residents  Obviously, it makes no sense to have Brown & Whiteford at No  9 in The London Directory and their next-door neighbor, Joseph Bond, at No  30  The same error appears in Baldwin’s The New Complete Guide for 1783  The New Complete Guide may have “borrowed” the error from The London Directory  It was not uncommon for the owner of one directory to copy entries from another to save both time and money  Beginning in 1778 and contrary to The London Directory, Kent’s Directory faithfully followed the numbering system of the Westminster Rate Books in all of its editions and listed Brown & Whiteford at No  29 as did Bailey’s Northern Directory in 1781  Perhaps realizing their error, The London Directory changed their listing of Brown & Whiteford from No  9 to No  29 in their 1783 edition and maintained that listing thereafter 
Sometime prior to 1792, the embankment on the Thames at the south end of Craven Street had been sufficiently extended allowing for the construction of ten new houses below the original houses: “ … four houses, Nos  21–24, were built on the west side, and six houses, Nos  25–30, on the east side of the way ”[11] In a note in the same report, the new numbering system is explained  “The houses in the street, which had previously been numbered consecutively down the west side and up the east side, were then renumbered on the same system to include the additional houses ”[12] Because the new houses (21-24) on the west side were built below the existing houses (1-20), houses 1-20 retained their original numbering 
Figure 4  Craven Street 1799  (Richard Horwood’s Map of London, Westminster and the Borough of Southwark 1799, Motco Enterprises Limited, motco com)
One would think that the numbers of the sixteen original houses on the east side, Nos  21 – 36, would simply increase by ten with the addition of the ten new houses, but such was not the case; they increased by nine  How could that be? The only possible explanation is that No  21 of the original houses was demolished to make way for the construction of the northernmost of the six new houses on the east side (No  30)  Evidence of No  21’s demolition appears in the lease granted to Charles Owen by William, 7th Baron Craven, in 1792, which describes No  22 as: “All that messuage in Craven Street late in the occupation of Francis Deschamps undertaker … being the Southernmost house in the Old Buildings on the East Side of the said Street numbered with the No  22 ”[13] The lease describes No  22 as being the southernmost house in the old buildings on the east side of Craven Street  Clearly the house previously at No  21 did not exist when the lease granted to Charles Owen was written in 1792 as it used to be the southernmost house  It is also worth noting that in 1790, The London Directory listed Jacob Life at No  21 (original numbering)  In 1791-2, it listed him at No  6  With No  21 vacated, it would allow for its demolition and the construction of the tenth new house  By utilizing lot No  21 for the new construction, only nine additional lots were needed to build the ten houses, hence, Margaret Stevenson’s former residence at 27 became 36 (27 + 9) in the renumbering and not 37 
For nearly a century and a half after Franklin departed London for America in March of 1775 the scales were tipped heavily in favor of his residence having been No  7 Craven Street  As early as 1807 in London; Being An Accurate History And Description Of The British Metropolis And Its Neighborhood, Volume 4, one would have read: “In Craven Street is a house, No  7, remarkable for having been the residence of Dr  Benjamin Franklin [14] In 1815, the identical phrase appeared in The Beauties of England and Wales [15] After 23 editions of not mentioning Franklin, his name finally appeared in the 24th edition of The Picture of London in 1826: “The house, No  7, Craven Street, in the Strand, was once the residence of Dr  Benjamin Franklin ”[16] In 1840, Jared Sparks referred to Franklin’s Craven Street residence appearing in London guide books in his voluminous The Works of Benjamin Franklin: “In the London Guide Books, ‘No  7, Craven Street,’ is still indicated as the house in which Dr  Franklin resided ”[17] In 1846, George Gulliver F R S , in his book, The Works of William Hewson, wrote: “She [Polly] had been upon terms of the warmest friendship with Dr  Franklin
Figure 5  No  7 Craven Street with Memorial Tablet  (Photo courtesy of British History Online, and the Survey of London)
since she was eighteen years of age  That eminent philosopher resided with her mother, Mrs  Margaret Stevenson, at No  7, Craven Street, Strand, during the fifteen years of his abode in London ”[18] Guide books mentioning Franklin at No  7 continued to proliferate throughout the century: Handbook for London; Past and Present, Volume I (1849);”[19] Handbook for Modern London (1851);”[20] The Town; Its Memorable Characters and Events (1859);”[21] London and Its Environs (1879) [22] There was an anomaly when London In 1880 Illustrated With Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets, Sixth Edition (1880) placed Franklin at 27 Craven street [23] The anomaly lasted for six years until his place of residence was changed to No  7 in the revised edition, London  Illustrated by Eighteen Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets (1886) [24] London Past and Present; Its History, Associations, and Traditions, Volume 1 (1891), copied the 1849 Handbook for London almost word-for-word and included, “The house is on the right from the Strand ”[25] In October of 1867, The Society of Arts in London declared that: “In order to show how rich the metropolis is in the memory of important personages and events, which it would be desirable to mark by means of tablets on houses, the Council have caused an alphabetical list to be prepared, … ”[26] Franklin had been elected a corresponding member to the Society in 1756 and was a popular choice among Council members deciding who they were to memorialize [27] By January of 1870, a tablet honoring him was affixed to the house they believed to have been his residence while in London, No  7 Craven Street in the Strand on the west side of the street [28] A majority of historians writing about Franklin in the nineteenth and early twentieth century placed him at No  7: O  L  Holley, The Life of Benjamin Franklin (1848); E  M  Tomkinson, Benjamin Franklin (1885); John Torrey Morse, Benjamin Franklin (1891); Paul Elmer More, Benjamin Franklin (1900); John S  C  Abbot, Benjamin Franklin (1903); Sydney George Fisher, The True Benjamin Franklin (1903)  A notable exception is D  H  Montgomery’s His Life Written by Himself published in 1896  He has Franklin at No  27 Craven Street  It seems then that depending upon the source, Franklin was thought to have lived at either No  7 or No  27, but not both, the overwhelming majority favoring No  7  As late as 2011, Franklin is still mentioned as living at No  7 [29]
In 1913, No  7 was scheduled to be torn down  An article in the March 1914 edition of The Book News Monthly, describes the situation:
As is well known to informed American pilgrims, it has been possible for all admirers of the famous philosopher and statesman to pay their respects to his memory before that house, No  7 Craven Street, just off the Strand, which was his chief home during his two sojourns in the British capital, but even as these lines are being written the London newspapers are recording that that interesting shrine is soon to be pulled down to make room for a restaurant  It is some mitigation of this misfortune to remember that at the most the Craven Street house was nothing more than a reproduction of the one in which Franklin had his suite of four rooms, for the structure has been rebuilt since Franklin’s time  When, then, some one makes a piteous plea that at least the philosopher’s bedroom shall be preserved, the soothing answer is that the apartment in question is only a replica of that in which the illustrious American enjoyed his well-earned slumbers in 1757-62 and 1764-75  The restaurant-builder, however, with an eye doubtless to possible American patronage, has assured the world that every effort will be made to preserve as much as possible of the entire structure [30]
Concerned with the possible demolition of Franklin’s residence, the Royal Society of Arts (formerly the Society of Arts[31]) initiated an inquiry into the matter [32] The London County Council, having taken over the responsibility of placing memorial tablets on notable houses from the Royal Society, was charged with the investigation  It ultimately fell to Sir George Laurence Gomme, a clerk to the Council, to come up with a response  A few years earlier Sir George had discovered Margaret Stevenson residing at No  27 Craven Street in the Westminster Rate Books  He must have wondered why No  7 on the west side of Craven Street was being celebrated as Franklin’s residence when the evidence clearly showed otherwise 
Sir George and his staff examined the various London directories discussed earlier and came up with a novel explanation for the discrepancy  They concluded that there had been two numbering systems on Craven Street  An anonymous author echoes Sir George’s conclusion about the two numbering systems in an article in The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts:
…an inspection of the directories of that time proves that there were at least two systems of numbering in Craven Street before the erection of the additional houses  According to one of these the numbers started from the top (Strand end) on the west side of the street, and ran down to the bottom to No  20, then crossed over and went back to the Strand along the east side – 21 to 36  According to the other system, the east side of the street was numbered from the bottom upwards, starting at No 1  This was not apparently in general use, but there is evidence that this numbering was at all events occasionally used 
The evidence of these two systems of numbering, and for believing that Mrs  Stevenson’s house was first No  7 under the oldest system, next No  27 under the second system, and finally No  36 under the latest and existing system, is to be found in the various directories and the Westminster rate-books [33]
The “evidence” mentioned above consisted of The London Directory’s listing of Brown & Whiteford at No  9: “The rate-books for 1781 and 1786 show the house next but one to the north of Mrs  Stevenson’s house as in the occupation of Brown and ‘Whiteford,’ while the old directories mention the business of the firm as wine merchants, and give their address as 9, Craven Street – then a little later, down to 1791, as 29, Craven Street  Curiously enough, in the years 1778 to 1780, or 1781, Lowndes gives it as No  9, and Kent as 29 ”[34] Ignoring Kent’s Directory having Brown and Whiteford as 29 and The London Directory (Lowndes) having Brown and Whiteford “a little later” as 29, and knowing that Mrs  Stevenson lived two doors south of them, Sir George concluded that her house must have been numbered 7, even though there is no listing in any of the directories of her residence ever being No  7  He surmised that the No  7 on the west side of Craven Street with the memorial tablet thought to have been Franklin’s residence had simply been confused with number 7 (27) on the east side  Again from The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts:
Taking all the evidence together, there cannot be any doubt whatever that Mrs  Stevenson’s house, in which Franklin lodged, was the house two doors north from Craven Court, first numbered 7, afterwards 27, and finally 36, and consequently that the house in which Franklin lived was that now numbered 36, not the one now numbered 7, on which the tablet is placed [35]
A response to The Royal Society of Arts was issued: “… the London County Council … informed the Society that it had made a mistake and that No  36 Craven street was the building that deserved commemoration ”[36] The Society accepted the Council’s conclusion, and despite assurances of preservation by the restaurant builder, No  7 was torn down the following year 
Sir George’s assertion “that Mrs  Stevenson’s house, in which Franklin lodged, was the house two doors north from Craven Court” was correct, however, his assertion that it was “first numbered 7, afterwards 27”, was not  It was only by association with the errant entry of Brown & Whiteford at No  9 from 1776-1782 in The London Directory that Mrs  Stevenson’s address was conjured to be No  7  The problem with associating her address exclusively with that of Brown & Whiteford at No  9 during those years is that, as previously demonstrated, The London Directory also listed four other Craven Street residents, Bond, Rowles, Sneyd, and Michie, who’s addresses did conform to the numbering system in The Westminster Rate Books  If Brown & Whiteford at No  9 was indicative of a numbering system different from The Westminster Rate Books, Bond, Rowles, Sneyd, and Michie would have been listed as Nos  10, 11, 12, and 15, respectively  So on one hand Sir George was relying on the Westminster Rate Books to establish Mrs  Stevenson at No  27 and on the other hand he was dismissing the Westminster Rate Books to establish her at No  7  Instead of using the anomalous listing of Brown & Whiteford at No  9, he could have just as easily, and more logically, used the Bond et al  listings, or the post-1782 Brown & Whiteford listing in the London Directory at No  29 to establish Mrs  Stevenson at No  27  Even if there had been two numbering systems, his assertion that No  27 was first numbered 7 would still be false  The earliest numbering system was the Westminster Rate Books dating from the early 1730s when the houses were constructed  Brown & Whiteford at No  9 didn’t appear until 46 years later and then only for a brief period 
There is ample evidence in Franklin’s correspondence and in a memoir by Polly Hewson (Mrs  Stevenson’s daughter) that Benjamin and Mrs  Stevenson lived in not one, but two houses on Craven Street  On July 6, 1772, Polly wrote to Benjamin from her house at Broad Street North in London: “My Mother I must tell you went off last friday week, took our little Boy with her and left Mr  Hewson [Polly’s husband, William] the care of her House [27 Craven Street]  The first thing he did was pulling down a part of it in order to turn it to his own purpose, and advantage we hope  This Demolition cannot affect you, who at present are not even a Lodger [Benjamin was traveling at the time], your litterary apartment remains untouch’d, the Door is lock’d …”[37] In a memoir about her husband written after his death Polly writes: “He [William Hewson] began his Lectures Sept  30, 1772, in Craven-street, where he had built a Theatre adjoining a house which he intended for the future residence of his family ”[38] On October 7, 1772, Benjamin wrote to his son William: “I am very well  But we [Mrs  Stevenson and I] are moving to another House in the same street; and I go down tomorrow to Lord LeDespencer’s to [stay a] Week till things are settled ”[39] To his son-in-law, Richard Bache, on the same day he wrote: “We are moving to another House in the [street] leaving this to Mr  Hewson ”[40] Writing to a friend on October 30, 1772 he explained: “I should sooner have answered your Questions but that in the Confusion of my Papers, occasioned by removing to another House, I could not readily find the Memorandums …”[41] On November 4, 1772 Benjamin informed his wife Deborah of the move  “We are removed to a more convenient House in the same street, Mrs  Stevenson having accommodated her Son-in-Law with that we lived in  The Removing has been a troublesome Affair, but is now over ”[42]
An agreement had been struck between the parties  Margaret and Benjamin would move to another house on Craven Street and allow Polly and William to move into No  27, the large yard behind the house being spacious enough to accommodate the anatomy school William wished to build [43] Perhaps the idea was inspired by Margaret’s next-door neighbor at No  26, Dr  John Leake, a man-midwife and founder of the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, who had built a theater adjoining his residence in which he practiced anatomy and taught midwifery [44]
After Margaret and Benjamin vacated No  27, Polly, William, their son William Jr , and William’s younger sister, Dorothy Hewson, took up residence there [45] In the 1773 Westminster Rate Books for Craven Street, Mrs  Stevenson’s (Stephenson in the Rate Books) name has been crossed out and replaced with “William Hewson ”[46] Further proof that the Hewsons had indeed moved into 27 Craven Street has been confirmed by the discovery of human and animal remains buried in the basement of No  36 (formerly No  27 and now the Benjamin Franklin House), a by-product of the dissections that took place at William’s anatomy school [47]
So what house on Craven Street did Mrs  Stevenson and Benjamin move into after vacating No  27? An examination of the Westminster Rate Books for the years 1774 and 1775 reveal them living not at No  7 on the west side of Craven Street as one might expect from the overwhelming consensus of nineteenth century guidebooks and biographies, but surprisingly at No  1 [48] The controversy of No  7 being torn down was all for naught as it had never been Franklin’s residence  Sir George was correct on that point  Unfortunately, No  1 was torn down as well in the early part of the twentieth century  The first time No  1 is mentioned as Franklin’s second residence is in the Survey of London: Volume 18, St Martin-in-The-Fields II: the Strand published by the London County Council in 1937, ironically the same County Council that had declared No  36 as Franklin’s only residence twenty-four years earlier 
From 1748 until 1772 Margaret ‘Stephenson’ occupied this house [No  27 (36)], and it was there that Benjamin Franklin settled after his arrival in London in 1757 as Agent to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania … In October, 1772, Mrs  Stevenson and Franklin removed to No  1, Craven Street (now demolished), and No  36 was for the next two years occupied by William Hewson, surgeon, who had married Mary Stevenson



ground_truth: Smartphones are more compact and power constrained.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What did the London Directory proclaim to contain?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 2: [49]
In the spring of 1774, William Hewson died unexpectedly of septicemia two weeks after cutting himself while dissecting a cadaver  Polly was left to care for their two young sons and was pregnant with a daughter she would give birth to in August of the same year  Is it possible that Margaret and Benjamin moved back into No  27 to assist Polly after the death of her husband as suggested in The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin?[50]
If the Westminster Rate Books are to be believed, the answer is no  For the year 1774, the Rate Books list Margaret Stevenson at No  1 and William Hewson at No  27  For the year 1775, they list Margaret Stevenson at No  1 and Magnus Falkner (Falconer/Falconar) at No  27  Magnus was William’s assistant at the anatomy school and fiancé to William’s sister, Dorothy  On his death bed, William instructed Polly, “let Mr  Falconar be my successor ”[51] Magnus would immediately take over the running of the anatomy school and continue William’s unfinished research  Four months later, he and Dorothy would marry [52] Essentially only two things changed at 27 Craven Street after William’s death: Polly gave birth to her daughter, and Magnus replaced William as the lease holder, so even if Margaret and Benjamin had wished to move back into No  27, there would have been no room for them  It is also interesting to note that considering the multiple times Benjamin wrote of his move out of No  27 (and complained of it), he never once mentioned moving back into No  27 in any of his correspondence after Mr  Hewson’s death 
Figure 6  No  36 Craven Street  (Photo courtesy of David Ross, britainexpress com)
In sum, based on the Westminster Rate Books[53] and Franklin’s correspondence, Mrs  Stevenson is known to have resided at No  27 (36) Craven Street from 1748 to 1772  It follows that, aside from the two years Franklin spent in Philadelphia from 1762 to 1764, he resided there from 1757 to 1772  Franklin’s correspondence also reveals that in the autumn of 1772, he and Mrs  Stevenson moved to another house on Craven Street  The 1773 Westminster Rate Books show her name crossed off at No  27 and William Hewson’s inserted  The following year the Rate Books list her at No  1 Craven Street  Evidence for Mrs  Stevenson and Benjamin remaining at No  1 after William’s death appears in the Westminster Rate Books for 1775 which have Mrs  Stevenson still residing at No  1 and Magnus Falkner residing at No  27  Further evidence can be construed from the lack of any mention of a move back into No  27 in Franklin’s correspondence  Despite the many theories one could devise as to why Franklin was thought to have lived at No  7 Craven Street by so many guide books and Franklin biographers of the nineteenth century, one thing is certain; at some point after Franklin’s departure to America in March of 1775, and no later than 1807, someone mistakenly associated him with No  7 on the west side of Craven Street, and it soon became his de facto residence  Credit must go to D  H  Montgomery in 1896 and Sir George in 1913 for setting the record partially straight by placing Franklin at No  27(36)  In 1937, the London County Council gave us the first accurate account of Franklin’s residences on Craven Street in the Survey of London at No  27(36) and No  1  It has been shown conclusively that No  27 was never previously numbered 7  It was, however, renumbered 36 in 1792 after ten additional houses were built at the southern end of the street and remains No  36 to this day 
[1] “Craven Street and Hungerford Lane”, in Survey of London: Volume 18, St Martin-in-the-Fields II: the Strand, ed  G H Gater and E P Wheeler (London, 1937), 27-39, Early History of the Site 
http://www british-history ac uk/survey-london/vol18/pt2/pp27-39
[2] “England, Westminster Rate Books, 1634-1900,” from database with images, Craven Street – 1735, FamilySearch from database by FindMyPast and images digitized by FamilySearch; citing Westminster City Archives, London 
[3] Ibid , Craven Street – 1748 
[4] The Statutes at Large, From Magna Charta to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain  Anno 1761 Continued, Vol  XXVII, ed  Danby Pickering, (Cambridge, John Archdeacon, 1767), 96 
[6] James Raven, Publishing Business in Eighteenth-Century England, (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014), 201 
[7] The London Directory For the Year 1776, Ninth Edition, (London: T  Lowndes, 1776), title page 
[8] Kent’s Directory For the Year 1778, Forty-Sixth Edition, (London: Richard and Henry Causton, 1778), title page 
[9] A listing in Kent’s Directory for the Year 1882 on p  28 reveals, “Brown Sarah, Leather-seller, 1, Westmoreland-buildings, Aldersgate-street”, and in Kent’s Directory for the Year 1883 on p  175, “Whiteland Mary, Wine & Brandy Mercht  Jermyn-str  St  James ”
[10] “The Papers of Benjamin Franklin,” Sponsored by The American Philosophical Society and Yale University, Digital Edition by The Packard Humanities Institute, 22:263a 
http://franklinpapers org/franklin
Mrs  Stevenson wrote to Benjamin Franklin a letter from her new home at 75 Northumberland Court on November 16, 1775: “In this Court I have a kind friend, Mr  Lechmoen he comes and seats with me and talks of you with a hiy regard and friendship ”
[11] Survey of London, Early History of the Site 
[12] Survey of London, Footnotes/n 10 
[13] Survey of London, Historical Notes/No  31 
[14] David Hughson, LL D , London; Being An Accurate History And Description Of The British Metropolis And Its Neighbourhood, To Thirty Miles Extent, From An Actual Perambulation, Vol  IV, (London: W  Stratford, 1807), 227 
[15] The Reverend Joseph Nightingale, The Beauties of England and Wales: Or, Original Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County, Vol  X, Part III, Vol  II (London: J  Harris; Longman and Co ; J  Walker; R  Baldwin; Sherwood and Co ; J  and J  Cundee; B  and R  Crosby and Co ; J Cuthell; J  and J  Richardson; Cadell and Davies; C  and J  Rivington; and G  Cowie and Co , 1815), 245 
[16] John Britton, F S A  & Co , ed , The Original Picture of London, Enlarged and Improved: Being A Correct Guide For The Stranger, As Well As For the Inhabitant, To The Metropolis Of The British Empire Together With A Description Of The Environs, The Twenty-Fourth Edition (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826), 479 
[17] Jared Sparks, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol  VII, (Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1840), 151 
[18] George Gulliver, F R S , The Works of William Hewson, F  R  S , (London: Printed for the Sydenham Society, MDCCCXLVI), xx 
[19] Peter Cunningham, Handbook for London; Past and Present, Vol  I, (London: John Murray, 1849), 245 
[20] F  Saunders, Memories of the Great Metropolis: or, London, from the Tower to the Crystal Palace, (New York: G P  Putnam, MDCCCLII), 138 
[21] Leigh Hunt, The Town; Its Memorable Characters and Events, (London: Smith, Elder and Co , 1859), 185 
[22] K  Baedeker, London and Its Environs, Including Excursions To Brighton, The Isle of Wight, Etc : Handbook For Travelers, Second Edition, (London: Dulau and Co , 1879), 133 
[23] Herbert Fry, London In 1880 Illustrated With Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets, Sixth Edition, (New York: Scribner, Welford, & Co , 1880), 50 
[24] Herbert Fry, London  Illustrated By Eighteen Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets, (London: W  H  Allen and Co , 1886), 40 
[25] Henry B  Wheatley, F S A , London Past and Present; Its History, Associations, and Traditions, Vol  1, (London: John Murray, New York: Scribner & Welford, 1891), 473 
[26] The Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol  XV, No  778, (October 18, 1867): 717 
[27] D  G  C  Allen, “Dear and Serviceable to Each Other: Benjamin Franklin and the Royal Society of Arts,” American Philosophical Society, Vol  144, No  3, (September 2000): 248-249 
Franklin was a corresponding member in 1756 because he was still residing in Philadelphia  He became an active member the following year when he moved to London 
[28] The Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol  XVIII, No  894, (Jan  7, 1870): 137 
“Since the last announcement, the following tablets have been affixed on houses formerly occupied by – Benjamin Franklin, 7 Craven-street, Strand, W C ”
[29] Franklin in His Own Time, eds  Kevin J  Haytes and Isabelle Bour, (Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2011), xxxvii 
“Takes lodgings with Margaret Stevenson at No  7 Craven Street ” It is unknown if the editors are referring to No  7 on the west side of Craven Street or No  36 on the east side using Sir George’s explanation of No  36 being previously numbered 7 
[30] Henry C  Shelly, “American Shrines on English Soil, III  In the Footprints of Benjamin Franklin,” in The Book News Monthly, September, 1913 to August, 1914, (Philadelphia: John Wanamaker, 1914), 325 
[31] The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol  LVI, No  2,880, (Jan  31, 1908): 245 
http://babel hathitrust org/cgi/pt?id=mdp 39015058423073;view=1up;seq=251
“His Majesty the King, who is Patron of the Society, has granted permission to the Society to prefix to its title the term ‘Royal,’ and the Society will consequently be known in future as the ‘Royal Society of Arts ’”
[32] Nineteenth Annual Report, 1914, of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, (Albany: J  B  Lyon Company, 1914), 293 
http://babel hathitrust org/cgi/pt?id=wu 89072985302;view=1up;seq=4;size=150
[33] The Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol  LXII, No  3,183, (Nov  21, 1913): 18 
http://babel hathitrust org/cgi/pt?id=mdp 39015058422968;view=1up;seq=26
[36] Allen, “Dear and Serviceable,” 263-264 
[37] Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 19:20 
[38] Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, F  L  S , Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late John Coakley Lettsom With a Selection From His Correspondence, Vol  I, (London: Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1817), 144 of Correspondence 
[39] Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 19:321b 
[40] Ibid , 19:314 
[41] Ibid , 19:353a 
[43] Simon David John Chaplin, John Hunter and the ‘museum oeconomy’, 1750-1800, Department of History, King’s College London  Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London , 202 
“Following Falconar’s death [1778] the lease [27 Craven Street] was advertised, and the buildings were described as:
A genteel and commodious house, in good Repair, with Coach-house and Stabling for two Horses…consisting of two rooms and light closets on each floor, with outbuildings in the Yard, a Museum, a Compleat Theatre, and other conveniences  (Daily Advertiser, 27 August 1778)”
[44] Simon Chaplin, “Dissection and Display in Eighteenth-Century London,” in Anatomical Dissection in Enlightenment England and Beyond: Autopsy, Pathology and Display, ed  Dr  Piers Mitchell, (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012), 108 
“Given that a nearby building at 35 [ No  26 in Franklin’s time] was occupied by the man-midwife John Leake, who advertised lectures – including lessons in the art of making preparations – at his ‘theatre’ between 1764 and 1788, it is possible that some facilities were shared  In both cases, however, the buildings [Leake’s residence at No  26 and Hewson’s residence next door at 27] served a dual function as domestic accommodation and as sites for lecturing and dissection ”
[45] George Gulliver, F R S , The Works of William Hewson, F  R  S , (London: Printed for the Sydenham Society, MDCCCXLVI), xviii 
[46] Westminster Rate Books, Craven Street – 1773, courtesy of the City of Westminster Archives 
[47] S W  Hillson et al , “Benjamin Franklin, William Hewson, and the Craven Street Bones,” Archaeology International, Vol  2, (Nov  22, 1998): 14-16 
http://dx doi org/10 5334/ai 0206
[48] Westminster Rate Books, Craven Street – 1774, 1775, courtesy of the City of Westminster Archives 
[49] Survey of London, Historical Notes/No  36, Craven Street (not sourced) 
[50] Gordon S  Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004), 261 
[51] Pettigrew, Memoirs, 146 of Correspondence 
[52] http://founders archives gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0178, note 7  “Falconar married Hewson’s sister five months after the Doctor’s death; most of the Craven Street circle attended the wedding, and BF gave away the bride: Polly to Barbara Hewson, Oct  4, 1774, APS” (American Philosophical Society); “England Marriages, 1538–1973 ,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch org/ark:/61903/1:1:V52W-TGS : accessed September 15, 2015), Magnus Falconar and Dorothy Hewson, September 12, 1774; citing Saint Martin In The Fields, Westminster, London, England, reference ; FHL microfilm 561156, 561157, 561158, 942 B4HA V  25, 942 B4HA V  66 
[53] I chose to rely on the Westminster Rate Books for the numbering system on Craven Street  The books were consistent throughout the eighteenth century in the ordering of residents on the street and were used as the basis for the 1792 re-numbering  For the most part, commercial directories aligned with them as well  If by chance a directory didn’t initially align, it would inevitably produce future editions that did 
Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin House, London
More from David Turnquist
If one looked into Benjamin Franklin’s time on Craven Street, they might   
I think it’s very ironic that on the street maps included in your excellent article, Craven Street is so close to Scotland Yard  Because following the back and forth juxtapositions of numbers 7, 27 and 36 Craven Street (throw in 75 Northumberland Court and 1 Craven Street, too) was a case that could confound Sherlock Holmes 
Excellent job of deciphering street renumbering material spanning sixty years, including that of a wrong house number (# 7) being erroneously identified and then perpetuated in subsequent street map printings  It’s gratifying at least to know that the present day #36 Craven Street is the correct house for Ben Franklin tourists to visit  Except for #1 Craven Street for the last three years Franklin was in London, but we won’t get into that 
Again, excellent article, David!
Context 3: KSTP (1500 AM; SKOR North) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Saint Paul, Minnesota  It is the flagship AM radio station of Hubbard Broadcasting, which also owns several other television and radio stations across the United States   KSTP has a sports radio format and is the ESPN Radio Network affiliate for Minneapolis-St  Paul   The radio studios are  on University Avenue in Minneapolis, shared with sister stations KSTP-FM, KSTP-TV, KTMY, and KSTC-TV  On weekdays, KSTP airs local sports shows from 9 a m  to 9 p m  and carries ESPN programming weekday mornings, late nights and weekends  Some KSTP shows are simulcast on other sports radio stations in the region 

KSTP runs the maximum power for AM stations, 50,000 watts   It shares clear-channel, Class A status on 1500 AM with WFED in Washington, D C   KSTP broadcasts a directional signal at night, using a three-tower array, with its transmitter on U S  Route 61 at Beam Avenue in Maplewood   Programming is also heard on 250 watt FM translator K235BP at 94 9 MHz in Bemidji 

History

WAMD and KFOY
KSTP's start in 1928 was the product of a merger between two pioneering Twin Cities stations: WAMD ("Where All Minneapolis Dances") in Minneapolis, first licensed on February 16, 1925 to Stanley E  Hubbard, and KFOY in St  Paul, first licensed on March 12, 1924 to the Beacon Radio Service in St  Paul 

Following a few test transmissions, WAMD made its formal debut broadcast on February 22, 1925  (In later interviews Stanley Hubbard traced WAMD's start to April 1924 ) It was located at the Marigold Dance Garden, and featured nightly "Midnight Frolics" broadcasts by the ballroom's orchestra  It is claimed that WAMD was the first radio station to be completely supported by running paid advertisements  Effective June 15, 1927, WAMD was assigned to 1330 kHz 

On November 11, 1927 WAMD's transmitter site at Oxboro Heath on Lyndale Avenue South burned down, two weeks after the station had been sold to the National Battery Company  An initial arrangement was made to carry WAMD's programs over WRHM (now WWTC), transmitting on WAMD's 1330 kHz frequency  Beginning on November 24, 1927 the WAMD broadcasts, still on 1330 kHz, were shifted to KFOY's facility in St  Paul  (At this time KFOY was assigned to 1050 kHz)  The next day it was announced that National Battery had purchased KFOY, and as of December 1, 1927 both KFOY and WAMD were reassigned to 1350 kHz  WAMD continued making regular broadcasts until the end of March 1928, while KFOY, although it continued to be licensed for a few more months on a time-sharing basis with WAMD, ceased operations at this point 

National Battery Company
In mid-December 1927, the National Battery Company announced it had received permission from the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) to build a new station, with the call letters KSTP, operating from a transmitter site to be constructed three miles south of Wescott  The next month it was reported that the new station, still under construction, had been assigned to 1360 kHz  KSTP made its debut broadcast on March 29, 1928  Although technically it was a separate station from WAMD and KFOY, both of which were formally deleted on April 30, 1928, overall KSTP was treated as the direct successor to a consolidated WAMD and KFOY 

Hubbard became the merged station's general manager, acquiring controlling interest in 1941  A month after the merger, KSTP became an affiliate for the NBC Red Network   It remained with NBC for 46 years  On November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the FRC's General Order 40, KSTP was assigned to a "high-powered regional" frequency of 1460 kHz  The only other station assigned to this frequency was WTFF in Mount Vernon Hills, Virginia (later WJSV, now WFED, Washington, D C )  On February 7, 1933, the FRC authorized KSTP to increase its daytime power to 25 KW  In 1938 and 1939 KSTP also operated a high-fidelity AM "experimental audio broadcasting station" Apex station, W9XUP, originally on 25,950 kHz and later on 26,150 kHz  In 1941, as part of the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, KSTP was assigned to its current "clear channel" frequency of 1500 kHz, with the provision that it and WJSV, as "Class I-B" stations, had to maintain directional antennas at night in order to mutually protect each other from interference  An FM station, KSTP-FM, was founded in 1946 but shut down in 1952 

Hubbard reportedly acquired an RCA TV camera in 1939, and started experimenting with television broadcasts   But World War II put a hold on the development of television   In 1948, with the war over, KSTP-TV became the first television station in Minnesota   With KSTP 1500 already associated with NBC Radio, KSTP-TV became an NBC Television Network affiliate   From 1946 to 1952, KSTP also had an FM counterpart



ground_truth: An alphabetical list of names and places of abode of the merchants and principal traders of the cities of London and Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, and their environs, with the number affixed to each house.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: How many years has KSTP-FM 102.1 been on the air?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 3:   KSTP-FM 102 1 was only on the air four years   There were few radios equipped to receive FM signals in that era, and management decided to discontinue FM broadcasts 

MOR and Top 40
As network programming moved from radio to television, KSTP programmed a full service Middle of the Road (MOR) radio format, in the shadow of its chief competitor, CBS Radio affiliate 830 WCCO  In 1965, a new FM station, reviving the KSTP-FM call sign, was put on the air, largely simulcasting the AM station   But by the late 1960s, KSTP-FM began a separate format of beautiful music   KSTP was the radio home of the Minnesota Vikings football team from 1970 to 1975  

In 1973, KSTP broke away from its longtime adult MOR sound and became one of four area stations at the time to program a Top 40 format  "15 KSTP, The Music Station" competed with Top 40 AM rivals WDGY, KDWB and later, WYOO  The competition would eventually shake itself out, with outrageous rocker WYOO dropping out after being sold in 1976, and then the staid WDGY switching to country music the following year   As for uptempo hits station 15 KSTP, it went from a tight Top 40 format to leaning adult rock in 1978, to leaning adult contemporary in 1979, to evolving into adult contemporary/talk by 1980   In 1982, it officially shifted to talk   Most Top 40 rock music, by this time, had moved to the FM band 

Past Personalities

Notable hosts who have been on KSTP include John Hines, Jesse Ventura, Larry Carolla, Tom Barnard, Big Al Davis, Don Vogel, John MacDougall, Griff, Mike Edwards, Geoff Charles, Joe Soucheray, James Lileks, Leigh Kamman, Barbara Carlson, Peter Thiele, Tom Mischke, Jason Lewis, Chuck Knapp, Machine Gun Kelly, Charle Bush, Mark O'Connell and Paul Brand  These broadcasters were supported by producers such as Bruce Huff, Rob Pendleton, Alison Brown, Jean Bjorgen, David Elvin (who Vogel dubbed the "Steven Spielberg of Talk Radio"), Mitch Berg and others 

The station has, for the most part, emphasized local hosts over the years   But in 1988, KSTP was one of Rush Limbaugh's first affiliates when his conservative talk show was rolled out for national syndication   (Clear Channel-owned KTLK-FM took over rights to Limbaugh's show in January 2006)  Other syndicated hosts previously heard on KSTP include Sean Hannity, Bruce Williams, Larry King, and Owen Spann 

Sports Radio
KSTP switched to Sports Radio on February 15, 2010   As the station had to wait for ESPN's contract with rival KFAN and its sister station KFXN to expire, it did not become an ESPN Radio affiliate until April 12, the same day that the Minnesota Twins were scheduled to play the first game in their new ball park, Target Field, against the Boston Red Sox   As a result Coast to Coast AM and Live on Sunday Night, it's Bill Cunningham were retained during this period   One ESPN Radio network program, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, was picked up by KSTP immediately following the format change 

In 2018, the station was approved for an FM translator on 94 1 FM, broadcasting from a transmitter atop the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis  The two-watt signal threw most of its power to the west, preventing interference to low powered FM stations on the same channel including WFNU-LP in St  Paul  With only two watts of power, however, the signal was limited to the immediate downtown area surrounding the IDS Center   It later acquired a 250 watt translator, K235BP at 94 9 MHz   The original translator was discontinued 

On January 15, 2019, KSTP rebranded as "SKOR North" (a reference to the Vikings team song/chant, "Skol, Vikings"), with local programming between 12 noon and 7 pm  About a year later, in May of 2020, KSTP suspended most of its local programming and laid off nearly all of its local staff  Station management cited the economic toll of the coronavirus for the changes  Sports broadcasting continues, primarily composed of ESPN radio network broadcasts 

Sports Teams

KSTP-AM served as the radio flagship for the Minnesota Vikings football team from 1970 to 1975 

On August 1, 2006, the station announced that it would be the new flagship station for the Minnesota Twins baseball team, effective with the start of the 2007 season  The Twins had been on rival WCCO since arriving in Minnesota in 1961   KSTP served as the flagship for the Twins until the end of the 2012 season, when games moved to 96 3 KTWN-FM (now KMWA)   The Twins have since returned to WCCO 830 

The switch to a fairly weak FM station caused dissent among some listeners, particularly in communities that had trouble picking up KSTP 1500   Although KSTP is the state's second most powerful AM station, it must operate directionally at night, delivering a reduced signal to parts of the market  WCCO, by comparison, offers a signal with a wider coverage area during the day than KSTP does, with WCCO's non-directional 50,000 watt signal  In response, the Twins have expanded the number of affiliates 

On March 9, 2011, KSTP announced it would be the new flagship for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's and women's basketball and men's ice hockey, ending a 68-year run on WCCO  The rights have since moved to KFXN-FM, which already aired Gopher football 

On March 2, 2017, KSTP announced it would be the first radio broadcaster for Minnesota United FC   The move brings live soccer action to 1500 AM 

Previous logos

References

External links
KSTP website

FCC History Cards for KSTP (covering 1928-1980)
Radiotapes com Historic Minneapolis/St  Paul airchecks dating back to 1924 including KSTP and other Twin Cities radio stations 
Rick Burnett's TwinCitiesRadioAirchecks com has additional airchecks of KSTP and other Twin Cities radio stations from the '60s and '70s, including Chuck Knapp's 2nd show on KSTP 

Hubbard Broadcasting
ESPN Radio stations
Peabody Award winners
Radio stations in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Radio stations established in 1925
1925 establishments in Minnesota
Minnesota Kicks
Sports radio stations in the United States
Clear-channel radio stations 



ground_truth: Four years.