From InfoWorld: Intel has bought its way into the tablet market, but success seems years away in smartphones, despite billions of dollars spent.
The allure of mobile devices has led Intel to take some uncharacteristic moves that defy the company's proud tradition of designing and manufacturing chips in-house. Intel has partnered with Chinese companies to build some smartphone and tablet chips, and is relying on third parties to manufacture those chips.
Intel bets the partnerships will accelerate its business in China, where smartphone shipments are booming. But the company wants to regain complete control over manufacturing, and on Thursday said it was investing $1.6 billion over 15 years in a China plant for mobile chip development and manufacturing.
The expenditure on a yearly basis isn't as huge as investments in its Israel and U.S. factories, but the goal is the same: to set up the chip maker for success in mobile devices. Most smartphones and tablets use ARM processors, and Intel wants to break that dominance.
Intel this year partnered with Chinese chip makers Rockchip and Spreadtrum -- which have a big presence in the country -- to design chips for low-cost mobile devices. A fallout with Rockchip led to Intel partnering with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) to produce an initial batch of low-cost mobile chips, which will go into smartphones and tablets starting at under $100.
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