Though Intel has dominated the PC market with its processor architecture since the beginning of the IBM PC days, they have largely been absent from the mobile market, which is dominated by the ARM architecture. Intel is now preparing to challenge ARM’s dominance in the mobile handset space.
Intel recently demonstrated at an Intel sales conference a smartphone featuring an SoC based on their Atom architecture – which is codenamed Medfield. The Medfield SoC is due to be released later this year. It was unclear who designed this phone or which Operating System it uses.
In late 2010, Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini, stated that Intel had already produced its second generation smartphone chip (Medfield), and that it is currently in customer sampling. The plan is for Medfield to be shipped in phones later in 2011 and into 2012.
Intel has in the past struggled at penetrating the cell phone market, one key reason of which has been power efficiency. However Intel claims that Medfield will be able to challenge ARM-based SoC power efficiency.
In a separate but related event, Intel just closed the deal on their purchase of Infineon’s wireless business unit, a deal worth $1.4B.
Intel is indeed serious about trying to penetrate the wireless market as they must since the future lies in mobility with internet connectivity anywhere and everywhere.
The question is, can Intel make inroads into the heavily-dominated ARM-based market, where handset companies have already made massive software investments in the ARM architecture? Intel certainly has the financial wherewithal to mount a challenge, but will that be enough?
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