Infineon selling cellphone chip business to Intel?
updated 11:05 am EDT, Mon May 17, 2010
Intel may get control of iPhone, iPad cell chips
Infineon is considering selling its cellular chipset business to Intel, a rumor from within the industry claimed Monday. Intel is believed to be very interested in getting into the mobile chip business and has supposedly made this known to Infineon. The latter's CEO, Peter Bauer, is characterized by the FT as opposed to a deal since it would be giving away a core business, but low revenues may create pressure to make a deal.
Neither Infineon nor Intel has agreed to comment on the story.
A switch to Intel would give it a major coup in the cellphone market but could also create conflicts of interest. Infineon currently provides the 3G chipsets for many key devices, including the iPhone and iPad as well as some BlackBerries and Nokia phones. All of these use main processors based on ARM technology, however, where Intel is increasingly pushing its own chips like the Atom Z600 for mobile devices. Concerns exist that Intel could give favorable pricing to those who buy any cellular hardware bundled with Atom processors.
TAGS :
Intel, iPhone, industry, Nokia, BlackBerry, Infineon, Research in Motion, mobile phones, Apple, iPad
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2009
I'd love to see intel do this..
With all their chip fabrication experience, maybe they can be more aggressive on getting RFCMOS - we're still at 65nm. 45nm (and 32nm) RFCMOS is going to be needed to get good battery life out of 4G/WiMax devices.