Taking on the world
With so many chip makers talking-up their latest high-performance offerings at MWC 2010, chip giant Intel was under pressure to deliver a riposte.
We spoke to one of the heads of its mobile business - Pankaj Kedia (pictured) - and asked him about the latest developments in its low-power processor roadmap. "We will surprise everyone," he said. "We will out-perform ARM chips hands-down, and we will have better graphics on Moorestown than anything else."
Right now Intel is demonstrating devices running on its Moorestown chip, which will be launched in Q2, and the emphasis is on its raw performance and that the Internet was originally designed for x86 (PC) processors rather than ARM-based ones. "The smartphone is coming to Intel - the smartphone is a mobile PC," said Kedia. "On process technology we are ahead of everyone by at least a year."
However, Kedia stressed that Moorestown is just stage one in Intel's mobile chip strategy. "It starts with Moorestown," he said. "This is a big deal for us, but Rome wasn't built in a day." The next stage for Intel is Medfield, which will be the first low-power chip to be made on the 32nm process.
Regarding the Internet, Kedia claimed you can only access the "full Internet" on Intel chips. "Flash support is not news for us," he said. "If it works on the PC it works." Kedia identified popular Facebook games like Farmville as something that will only run on Intel chips. "Consumers want the same Internet no matter what device, so if you want the same Internet, you need the performance," he concluded.
