Intel’s biggest competitor is now Qualcomm

by Scott Bicheno on 25 June 2009, 07:00

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qasth

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Integration

This integration is what Qualcomm considers to be its key advantage, not only over Intel but over other members of the ARM ecosystem, such as NVIDIA with its Tegra platform.

It's the only company that designs the CPU, graphics (don't forget it bought most of the ATI handheld division from AMD at the start of this year) and connectivity silicon and thus can integrate it all better than anyone else.

So what, you may ask. Well the apparent benefit of this greater integration is to do with power requirement - the most important factor in designing a chip for the mobile market.

Asked about how he views Intel as a competitor, Timmons said: "Our architecture is always going to have an advantage in terms of power consumption, just because we've come from such a power constrained environment in the mobile phone market. But we've got to keep on delivering and improving our performance if we want to see off competition like Intel."

And NVIDIA? "Again, the benefits are to do with integration. With a single Qualcomm chip you're getting less silicon and less power but just as good, if not better, performance."