Rising demand for mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and handheld gaming devices will push mobile processor sales past the 4 billion mark by 2014, says In-Stat. But consumers and their devices don’t just want a mobile CPU; they want integrated mobile broadband connectivity too.
Qualcomm, the San Diego-based chip maker is going to finally see its much vaunted Mirasol color displays come to market in early 2011. The displays were supposed to launch in 2010.
Intel has taken up a patriotic cause this year, paying special attention to promising U.S.-based companies. The company announced four software and chip companies that have collectively received over $30 million from its Intel Capital Invest in America Technology Fund, including an energy software maker.
Intel is all set for the latest edition of its Intel Developer Forum (IDF), a gathering of its partners and developers. The event starts today in earnest in San Francisco. Along with many announcements, expect details on USB 3.0 and a new chip architecture: Sandy Bridge.
ARM is introducing a new powerful chip architecture, Cortex-A15 which will target web servers and personal portable devices like the iPhones and iPads. The Cortex-A15 architecture is ideal for cloud clients connected via high speed wireless connections and is likely to give Intel some sleepless nights.
The z190, a brand new chip from IBM, runs at a breathtaking speed of 5.2 GHz and it is meant to power a new mainframe system that is trying to tame the flow of data emerging from modern enterprises and their customers.
Intel is buying Infineon’s wireless chip business for roughly $1.4 billion in cash. The new business will allow Intel to compete in the smartphone markets. But with WiMAX rollout not working out as planned, the deal is Intel’s plan B as LTE gains momentum.
The fourth-generation iPhone launched yesterday, complete with several new microelectromechanical systems (MEMs), which are increasingly an integral part of our gadgets, translating the physical world into the digital one. That’s great for a variety of old-school semiconductor manufacturers as well as some later-stage startups.
Wintegra, a chip startup, filed for a $115 million IPO last week, while Beceem a WiMAX radio provider, filed last month. In March, Max Linear, another semiconductor firm, successfully went public. Is this a silicon renaissance, or are VCs merely trying to clear their books?
Intel, with its x86 architecture, has owned the corporate computing market for decades, but Barry Evans, CEO of Austin, Texas-based systems startup Smooth-Stone, thinks it’s time for a change. Evans is betting on ARM-based processors to “completely remove power as an issue in the data center.”
