Intel pushes tablet processor challenge chip designer ARM

Beijing April 12 news, according to foreign media reports, Intel Monday announced the code-named Oak Trail Tablet PC processor, to get involved in the mobile processor market, to challenge the current market leader - the use of ARM architecture processor.

Although Intel accounts for 80% of the global market for notebooks and desktop processors, it still has little to do with the mobile phone and tablet processor market. Previously, Intel did not have a chip that fits the slender body of a tablet. Its existing chips require a lot of power.

Although Intel excels at keeping the processor running at its limit, energy consumption has become a limiting factor for the company's products entering the mobile processor market. As more and more consumers purchase tablets to replace PC upgrades, Intel is seeking to diversify its revenue channels.

Energy consumption and Video playback performance are the areas where Intel faces the most competition. In the mobile processor market, Intel’s competitors are mainly chip designers ARM. The latter's chip design is different from Intel's current x86 architecture and is widely used in mobile phones, and it has also entered the field of tablet computers. Apple iPad uses ARM technology.

Intel said that the company plans to launch the first processor for smartphones by the end of this year. However, Intel did not announce the time to market for the above two mobile processors.

Intel had previously set foot in the wireless business and subsequently withdrew from this market, so it is still unknown whether the company will succeed in this market in the future. Intel sold the company's mobile chip business in 2006, but in 2010 it spent $1.4 billion to purchase the wireless chip division of Infineon, a German chip maker.

With this transaction, Intel also returned to the already flourishing mobile chip market. However, statistics from market research firm Gartner show that Infineon’s wireless chip division only accounts for approximately 5% of the global mobile phone processor market.

For Intel's prospects in the mobile processor market, market analysts are currently divided into two groups. The faction believes that it is too late for Intel to enter the market and it is difficult to gain more market share. The other group believes that Intel's net profit last year reached 11.7 billion US dollars, revenue reached 43.6 billion US dollars, the company has sufficient funds for mobile processor business to become the market leader.