Intel and Nokia have more than a few holes in their respective collections of mobile technologies. How far will the collaboration announced Tuesday go to plug the holes and take them to the next technology plane?
Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher
(Credit: Intel)A platitude easily missed in the announcement may be the most revealing statement. Simply, that the two companies create the opportunity to take advantage of each other's expertise.
Nokia makes mobile phones. Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, can't get its chips into mobile phones. On the other hand, Intel makes the silicon that powers the world's PCs. Nokia doesn't have a clue about PCs.
The announcement won't necessarily inspire confidence with its lack of product particulars, but that's not what it's about. "Today is a relationship announcement," said Jeff Orr, senior analyst for mobile devices at ABI Research.
Intel and Nokia are simply agreeing at this stage to collaborate rather than be direct competitors, according to Orr.
Nokia was clear--in a cryptic sort of way--on one point, however: "Today's collaboration is not about smartphones but creating a new class of devices," Kai Oistamo, executive vice president for devices at Nokia, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Beyond those future devices--presumably powered by Intel silicon--what does Intel get? Initially, the most concrete thing is 3G. "This is a gap for Intel, which has focused on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and WiMax," Orr said. "As a result, when future architectures like an Atom platform are developed for MIDs (mobile Internet devices), Netbooks, smartphones, that means vendors will have more flexibility for connectivity."
In short, Intel can build 3G into its chipsets and Intel can compete more effectively in the future with products like the iPhone and Palm Pre that include 3G as standard. Intel-based notebooks and Netbooks, until recently, were rarely offered with 3G as a standard option.
"We're not talking about specific products today but certainly we would not have taken a license (from Nokia) if we didn't have the intention to build a product," Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager at the Ultra Mobility Group, said in a phone interview Tuesday, referring to Intel's licensing of Nokia's HSPA/3G modem technology.
And it may be too soon for 4G technologies like WiMax. There are many countries (ABI Research's Orr counts about 100) where 3G is just emerging, so talking about WiMax (a 4G technology) is "very premature for most countries," he said.
... Read moreUpdated at 8:20 a.m. PDT: Added Intel-Nokia announcement and Intel discussion.
Intel and Nokia announced on Tuesday a wide-ranging deal covering chips, hardware, and software for mobile devices.
The companies said their new "long-term relationship" will focus on developing new chip architectures and software and a new class of Intel-based mobile computing devices. The move is part of a major shift for Intel, which is a giant in PC chips but not a player in cell phones.
Among other aspects, the agreement covers mobile applications and wireless Internet access "in a user-friendly pocketable form factor."
The Intel and Nokia effort includes collaboration in several open-source mobile Linux software projects. Intel will also acquire a Nokia HSPA/3G modem IP license for use in future products.
"We will explore new ideas in designs, materials and displays that will go far beyond devices and services on the market today," Nokia said in a statement.
For Intel, the deal adds momentum to its push into the small device/smartphone space. The Nokia announcement follows a pact announced with LG Electronics in February to collaborate on development of smartphones based on Intel's future "Moorestown" silicon and Linux Moblin software.
In March, Intel also announced a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to cooperate in the manufacture of Atom processors.
Intel's need
The point of all of these announcements is to get Intel-architecture chips into cell phones, a giant worldwide market with well over a billion devices sold in 2008.
And the world's largest chipmaker needs to be a player in this market. Smartphones like Apple's iPhone, the Palm Pre, and T-Mobile's Google Android phone, the G1, are taking on many of the attributes of PCs and are increasingly adept at Web browsing, video streaming, and game playing--not unlike a personal computer.
Toshiba just began selling a smartphone that packs a 1GHz Qualcomm processor.
Texas Instruments and other chipmakers are also readying speedy processors for smartphones next year with two processing cores and enhanced video capabilities. And it was disclosed last week that an Nvidia chip will power Microsoft's Zune HD.
And what do those devices and technologies have in common? They're all powered by chips based on the ARM design.
Why ARM? ARM's approach to designing processors is the opposite of Intel's: power efficiency is paramount, performance secondary. Smartphone chips need to operate within a tiny power envelope, typically well under 0.5 watts and must last all day on one battery charge. Current Intel Atom chips--while relatively fast--draw too much power and are hardly suitable for smartphones.
The irony
Ironically, Intel manufactured an ARM-based chip series for many years called Xscale, which traces its heritage to a design called StrongARM. These chips were used in the Hewlett-Packard iPaq, a leading handheld for a number of years. But Intel sold this business to Marvell in 2006.
The chipmaker's strategy now is to shrink its global-standard x86 PC chip architecture to the point where it can run efficiently in smartphones. That's where Moorestown comes in. Intel claims Moorestown will be suited for high-end smartphones by 2010 and that "Medfield" silicon will make it into standard cell phones by 2011.
Neither Intel nor LG gave a date for availability of the LG device, but it is expected to appear soon after Moorestown is available. Intel is saying that Moorestown will be available in 2009 or 2010, though the second half of 2009 appears increasingly likely.
Under the agreement with TSMC, Intel will port its Atom processor technology to TSMC, which will serve solely as a manufacturer of Atom-related silicon--primarily chipsets.
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