SAN DIEGO--Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said a potpourri of devices will tap into the goodness of its Snapdragon chips, as the company also said Wednesday that it is working with Microsoft on the next version of Windows.

Qualcomm's dual-core Snapdragon processor will make its first high-profile appearance in Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad tablet, due soon. Like chips from Texas Instruments and Apple, Qualcomm's APQ8660 is based on the ARM architecture.

The company also began sample shipments this month of its next-generation "Krait" MSM8960 processor, which is designed to run at speeds up to 2.5GHz and integrates … Read more

Intel can be fast and loose with design concepts like its newest--"Ultrabook." But for those grasping for concrete examples, there's the MacBook Air.

Guidelines for the Ultrabook were announced by Intel today at the Computex conference. In a nutshell, Intel is trying to reinvent the laptop as a tablet minus the keyboard. Make a laptop very thin and portable like an iPad and you've borrowed some of the tablet's main--and most compelling--design attributes. That's the idea.

Alternatively, the Ultrabook could be seen as the death knell for the Netbook, the small, Atom processor-based … Read more

Intel CEO Paul Otellini sees "chaos" in the Android universe versus control in Apple's world, but he believes Google will gravitate to a more controlled model.

"Apple's objective is to control everything end to end so they can control the experience and the pricing," Otellini said Tuesday at Intel's investor meeting in Santa Clara, Calif.

Google's Android, however, couldn't be more different, according to Otellini. "Google's model is to get as broad a base as possible because, how do they get paid? They don't get paid by selling Android. They get paid by clicks. At the end of the day, the more pervasive Android is, the more money Google ultimately makes because advertising revenue can accrue from it," he said, responding to an analyst who asserted that Android's growth is being driven by the dynamics of fragmentation.

Otellini continued. "I think there is some growing pains that Android is going through...How do you create order out of chaos?"

He compared Android today with Microsoft's past trials and tribulations… Read more

Nvidia's CEO is not pleased with the cool reception Android tablets have gotten so far. And he expressed frustration over marketing gaffes in an interview with CNET earlier this week.

Sales of the first Android Honeycomb tablet, the Motorola Xoom, have not been impressive when compared with those of the iPad. Though Motorola claimed in late April that Xoom shipments hit 250,000, that number is far lower than the total being enjoyed by market leader Apple, which sold about 1 million iPad 2 tablets in the first weekend of sales alone.

During an earnings conference call, Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, articulated part of the problem, saying, "Consumers want more apps for Android tablets."

That's not the whole story, according to Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, who I chatted with on Thursday. Nvidia's Tegra 2 is the core piece of silicon inside Honeycomb tablets, including the Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

"It's a point of sales problem. It's an expertise at retail problem. It's a marketing problem to consumers. It is a price point problem," he said, for starters.

Though Huang didn't mention the $499 starting price for the iPad, it was clear that this was a reference point. "The baseline configuration included 3G when it shouldn't have," he said. "Tablets should have a Wi-Fi configuration and be more affordable. And those are the ones that were selling more rapidly than the 3G and fully configured ones," he said. … Read more

A technical Web site posted an article yesterday asserting that Apple will not replace Intel processors with an alternative design anytime in the next two to three years.

This follows a report on a chip rumor site last week that claimed Apple is "dumping" Intel and switching to chips based on the ARM design, the same silicon used in the iPhone and iPad. That report said the transition would happen in that time frame.

While acknowledging Apple's history of transitions to new chip architectures and the ostensible motivations for moving to ARM, Real World Technologies' David Kanter … Read more

A former Apple executive has some harsh words for Intel, claiming the "PC market is in its twilight" and citing Intel's virtual absence in the smartphone market.

Jean-Louis Gassée, a former Apple executive and now a general partner for Allegis Capital, wrote in his "Monday Note" blog that the PC market is in its death throes. His comments come after a rumor Web site claimed that Apple will abandon Intel processors in favor of processors based on the power-frugal ARM chip architecture.

"Now that the PC market is in its twilight, with mobile devices proliferating and stealing growth from the PC, surely Intel has to get into the race," Gassée wrote. While not mentioning Intel's power-efficient Atom processor by name, Gassée had harsh words for Intel's lack of competitiveness in the smartphone world--where its Atom chip is intended to compete.

"Let's consider Intel's complete absence from the mobile scene. Not a single smartphone contains an x86 processor," he wrote.… Read more

In the wake of the story from SemiAccurate and other, more concrete indications, it's likely that Apple is on a quest to make its MacBooks more Post-PC-like. So, what could a future MacBook look like?

We have hard physical evidence of this design trend already with the 2010 MacBook Air. Namely, the 11.6-inch model. Though based on ancient Intel (Core 2 Duo) chips, it delivers good-enough performance (with the help of Nvidia silicon)--performance not unlike what a future Apple A series processor may deliver (or future ARM chips from Texas Instruments or Qualcomm, for that matter).

So, … Read more

Intel's power-efficient 3D transistor couldn't have come any sooner. IDC on Thursday, in its quarterly forecast, is listing not just Intel-compatible PC chips but other categories of processors, namely ARM--the power-frugal silicon of choice in the tablet and smartphone world.

"For the first time, IDC is forecasting PC microprocessor units by processor architecture, including those based on x86 (Intel and Advanced Micro Devices) and those based on ARM," IDC's Shane Rau wrote in a research note dated Thursday. ARM chips are made by Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Apple (via Samsung), and Nvidia, to name a few. … Read more

Amid serious legal squabbling between Apple and Samsung, Intel may have an opportunity to land Apple as a chip customer, according to analysts.

''Based on a number of inputs, we believe Intel is...vying for Apple's foundry business,'' wrote Gus Richard, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co., in a research note, according to a report in EE Times.

Foundry refers to contract manufacturing. Samsung is currently the foundry for Apple's A4 and A5 processors, which are used in the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

This may be a golden opportunity for Intel, according to another analyst. "Given the strained relationship between Apple and Samsung over IP (intellectual property) issues, there is a window where Intel can become the foundry of choice for Apple," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw, in a phone interview.

Though Intel is relatively new to the foundry business, it already has one customer on record, Achronix Semiconductor. But it also has at least two more confidential customers, according to a source familiar with Intel's foundry business.

That said, gaining Apple as a customer would move Intel into the contract manufacturing big leagues with the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)--also rumored to be a future Apple foundry. In fact, Intel isn't there yet. "It's not the sort of thing that could happen easily or quickly," said the source. … Read more