Stefan Mileschin

Chipzilla is apparently planning a big Douglas MacArthur comeback in the mobile processor market next year and is speeding up the development of its next-generation, low-power.

According to Digitimes, the new line of low-power processors will see power consumption move closer to rival ARM's, while reducing production costs through a process shrink.

Needless to say, Digitimes is short on details and only mentions in passing that it is talking about Intel's Haswell and Clover Trail chips. It quotes its usual industry insiders.

But this is all possible. If the company is considering pushing forward its roadmaps on these chips, it does make sense.

For the next year the PC market will be on hold. Companies are not really going to start buying until the middle of next year. AMD does not seem to be releasing anything significant that requires Intel to rush out a counter design.

This gives Chipzilla the chance to focus on mobile, and in particular trying to take on ARM.

This would satisfy the shareholders who are worried that the company is not making inroads into the mobile market fast enough.

Meanwhile Digitimes also claims that the outfit has pulled back on its Studybook tablets. Chipzilla originally expected its StudyBook tablet shipments to reach 3-4 million units in the period from January 2013 to June 2014. But the company has told its supply chain that it has reduced the forecast volume to 1.6-2 million units.

Intel's problem in this case has been that while it had an advantage in hardware and software integration, it wanted far too much money when buyers wanted to place large orders. Intel had hoped to sell the tablets to government departments and the education sector in India and China, but apparently would not do a deal on price.

http://news.techeye.net/chips/intel-...ts-arm-wrestle