Intel warned ARM this week that it is going after ARM’s business
in the smartphone handset business and appears to have got a
foothold.
“You saw some announcements last week with LG,” Intel CEO Paul
Otellini told the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference
2009, “you’ll see some announcements in the next month or so from
some other major handset manufacturers. Watch that space.”
The question for potential Intel customers is whether Intel’s 45nm
Atom processors can deliver sufficiently low-power performance to
make an Atom-based smartphone useful.
The current difference in the power of a current Atom and an
ARM-based Freescale chipset is 14W as against 3W, and the
difference in the bill of materials between using an Atom or an
ARM-based Freescale chipset can be as much as x3 - $60 as against
$20.
But it remains to be seen what the differences are with Intel’s
45nm processor.
If tier one handset manufacturers deliver Atom-based phones with
decent battery life, then ARM’s dominant position in the mobile
phone industry could be threatened.
Otellini added that Intel was focussed on getting Atom-based
chipsets into the handsets. “That’s critical for us,” he
said.
Otellini hinted that Intel may be thinking of adopting a foundry
business model for its NAND flash. “It may not be essential for us
to have our own NAND factories to build," Otellini told the
conference, “we could probably specify the product that we want and
buy it from third parties.”
He dose not, apparently, regard NAND as an important business for
Intel. “NAND in the platform is strategic, NAND as a business for
Intel isn’t,” said Otellini.
For regulator updates take a look at
the Electronics Weekly
Twitter site and see how it
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Embedded World 2009