ARM: We Are More Appropriate for Android Than Intel
ARM just reported a solid earnings result with licensing revenue of about $192.3 million for Q3.
During the call, CEO Warren East responded to some concerns that Intel is now entering ARM's processor market within the Android ecosystem much more aggressively.
While he recognized that Intel is pouring huge resources into making its Atom chips work on Android, he told analysts that ARM's product architecture is "more appropriate" for Android systems and will continue to be "more appropriate" than Intel's products. One of the major advantages East sees for ARM are Mali (acceleration) cores, which are beginning to ship into the market now. "We are expecting tens of millions of Mali products shipping in 2011, driving the maturity of that ecosystem."
ARM reported 1.9 billion ARM processors shipped in the third quarter of 2011. 1 billion of those chips were shipped into mobile phones and mobile computers, the company said. Cortex A processor shipments were up 300 percent year-over-year. East also disclosed that dual-core Cortex-A9 chips can now be found in 14 percent of smartphones that shipped in Q2.
On concerns that Intel is moving to 22 nm processors, and that the company is heavily relying on its manufacturing process as competitive advantage, East responded that ARM processors at 28 nm will be "happening really very, very soon." However, 28 nm processor won't account for a substantial margin of the market for 18 to 24 months he noted. 20 nm products are "a couple of years out as well", East told analysts. He did not seem to be especially worried about Intel's 22 nm processors.
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He is a fool not to worry about Intel. Intel is revamping the Atom processor with a whole new redesign. In late 2012 and early 2013, we'll be seeing a new Atom that is a whole lot scarier than the one they have now. They will quickly get to the 14nm level and ARM will suddenly have great competition. This is good for the industry though as ARM will move into the server space in the future as well with low power multicore systems.Reply
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Camikazi *sigh* Underestimating Intel is dangerous, very dangerous, that big machine of a company can be lazy at times but when it focuses you better be careful.Reply -
whysobluepandabear Yeah, and AMD had nothing to worry about in the Athlon 64 days - yet Intel came in afterwards and CRUSHED them; to this day as a matter of fact.Reply -
rantoc Camikazi*sigh* Underestimating Intel is dangerous, very dangerous, that big machine of a company can be lazy at times but when it focuses you better be careful.Reply
Indeed, look at what happened when AMD got off with the best processor (athlon)... took intel a while but then came core and now sandy bridge and those designs are indeed powerful (Maybe even too powerful, i predict the sales of the next gen will have a harder time since few pieces of software pushes the SB to the limit today) -
jrharbort >> Not worried about Intel.Reply
I seem to remember an event very similar to this in 2006. Things did not end very well for a certain processor manufacturer.
If ARM is smart, they will keep out a sharp eye. -
rantoc: Just like how in 1998, Nvidia, ATI, random forgotten old companies bested Intel in graphics, but then Intel came back after everybody underestimated them and... Oh wait...Reply
Intel is king of x86, a proprietary Intel CPU architecture. AMD is the queen of x86, and VIA is the court jester of x86. Everything else other than x86 is dominated by... somebody else.
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lewist Atom is crap and that is that! People buy it because they dont know anything about computer specs and retailers say their good for what they are, which in my opinion is nothing. A revamp of a crap cpu is like pouring purfume on a pig.Reply