Intel to Acquire iPhone Supplier Infineon's Wireless Chip Unit

[spillproof]

Interesting. Let the fights begin!

 

[aegisdesign]

Intel's ToDo list

Sounds like they've just about completed their ToDo list after buying Wind River, partnering with Nokia on an OS, buying a baseband company, completing the Moorestown Atom Z600 chips.

1.5Ghz Intel based Nokia phone running MeeGo due by the end of the year / early next year perhaps?

 

[JoeNobody1982]

just for your information

Intel didn't buy Infineon technologies, they only bought a department (wireless solutions) of Infineon!!!

Never stop thinking - Infineon

 

[ranReloaded]

Infineon was 'born to be acquired by Intel'; I mean look at the logos

 

[macintoshtoffy]

As neat as that sounds, I would hate for them to start doing this. The carriers can't keep up with the demand phones put on their services, not with standing adding 100X more hungry for service machines.

Hope the likes of Verizon and AT&T are putting their money where their mouth is and actually improving their ability over the marketing jargon they keep talking.

It can easily be solved by upgrading infrastructure and having data caps where people pay per megabyte/gigabyte and so on. If you ration the limited amount of bandwidth through a traffic based payment system then you ensure that the data vampires don't suck all the capacity up. It can be done - the question is whether the American public (who are stuck in the 'all you can eat' mind set) are willing to accept such a change, I have a feeling that they wouldn't accept it due to a misplaced belief of entitlement.

atom has too much x86 legacy in it. reason people like ARM is that it's a fresh start from x86.

intel is going to use the same strategy as the pentium. don't make the best product, make the cheapest one and people will buy it. i think it will probably work with cell phones as well in the long run

This issue has been trashed to death something incredible - the amount of 'power' required for those legacy aspects of x86 is so small it isn't even worth considering. The problem is a lot more complex than just simply pointing to the x86 ISA and stating because it is old therefore it is instantly crap. Intel has shown that you can actually scale down the process to hand held devices - and many of the ideas coming out of it include the idea of having large multicore processors using very simple CPU designs in lieu of having large complex multicore processors as we have today.

i don't think intel cares about Apple, it's the rest of the market

right now you license ARM and build a CPU. there are a lot of incompatible CPU's in the market that all have the same basic instruction set. Intel wants to sell you a few parts to make your costs of developing a mobile device a lot less

just like all PC's run all Windows software, Intel wants the mobile market to be similar hardware and software that will run the same apps across different models of phones

True, I don't think Intel cares about Apple to the extent of CPU's ship but it does provide a great show pony of what can be done when a company that gives a crap about their products actually spend some time and produces a great computer with Intel products. Through osmosis the association with Intel to a good outcome the consumer will idealise in their mind the preference for Intel based products as a result - in very much the same way of the 'Intel inside' transformed subjective onto objective qualities for the end user to consider when purchasing a computer.

My hunch is that's exactly why Intel is making this purchase. It's got nothing to do with the current stand-alone chips like the one used in the iPhone, but it's got everything to do with complete chipsets for 3G laptops/netbooks, etc.

I suspect Intel's trying to revive the "Centrino" project.

As long as they don't pull the asinine "you can't use another chip with ours" trick like they've done before, all the world will benefit.

If they do - I guess Qualcomm will be happy to sell new chipsets.

I can't see them not selling them separately but I could see them offering a big discount to vendors who go 'all Intel' - either as a 3G/Wifi combo or an even bigger discount if as an OEM on goes Intel CPU/Chipset/Wifi/3G. What OEM's want is a complete system that enables them to do the least amount possible and focus on the value adding side of the business such as the ascetics of the device, bundled software, customisation of the operating system and so forth.

 

[BTW]

It isn't a done deal yet. This has to get Federal approval. Apple could and should protest this acquisition as Intel may force them to use their Atom processors.

 

[rjohnstone]

It isn't a done deal yet. This has to get Federal approval. Apple could and should protest this acquisition as Intel may force them to use their Atom processors.

I highly doubt Intel would go the route of trying to "force" anyone into buying Atom CPUs.
Federal approval is not going to be an issue.
Infineon is a German company selling off one business unit to an American company.
Intel has stated it plans to leave the WLS unit as a standalone business according to the SEC filing.
Nothing to raise any eyebrows about.

 

[MattInOz]

I think this is more about 4G (LTE) than 3G.

They will keep the current products to service 3G but will be trying to push other intel tech into 4G implementations. So they they can push those technoliges in the market.
I can't see them trying to build a full spectrum IO chip even going as far as building in a LP that can drop into the full range of devices.

 

[Hattig]

Intel has in the past been critical of the iPhone's use of ARM-based processor technology, claiming that any device seeking to access the "full Internet" needs to be based on Intel's technology.

Hahaha, if Apple had waited for something suitable from Intel, there would be a total of zero iPhones sold to date.

 

[alent1234]

It isn't a done deal yet. This has to get Federal approval. Apple could and should protest this acquisition as Intel may force them to use their Atom processors.

apple is free to use qualcom. it's not like there is no competition

 

[MacKeeperFanMod]

I don't like the sound of this, but as long as it doesn't restrict Apple in making great phones, it should be fine. Intel knows everything is going mobile so its a smart move for them.