Intel wants to use 22nm process to change the market of mobile phone chip

The massive popularity of smart phones has made people increasingly demanding smart phones. The mobile phone is no longer just a simple voice and SMS function, smooth Internet experience, high-definition video playback, powerful camera functions, speed gaming experience, long standby time, etc., has become the dominant user chooses smart phones and other mobile terminals The key factor.

How these experiences can be achieved depends, to a large extent, on the phone's powerful "core" - the mobile phone chip, which has also attracted more and more companies to enter the field of mobile phone chips, even the chip of the PC era. Overlord Intel is no exception. With the launch of the Atom processor Z2460 platform, Intel has also officially introduced high-performance, low-power, intelligent Intel computing advantages to the smart phone field.

So, how will Intel lay out in the smart phone chip field? How to successfully transplant Intel's advantages in the field of PC chips to the field of mobile phone chips? What will be the impact of Intel's strong entry into the entire mobile phone chip market? In response, Huang Jie, the managing director of Intel (China) Co., Ltd., interpreted us in an interview with C114.

From the PC to the mobile phone: Intel's efforts to squeeze into the mobile terminal chip market why competition in the mobile phone chip field is so white? From the perspective of the entire ICT industry, the fifth computing cycle has come. Even from the perspective of the entire human social life, the mobile Internet and intelligent terminals also play an important role. In particular, the smart phone market in China is accelerating and the intellectualization rate is more than half. In the first half of 2012, China's smartphone shipments reached nearly 100 million units, reaching 9.4855 million units, a growth rate of 197%. The market share of smartphones in the incremental market has exceeded 48%, and the domestic market has been fully launched.

The geometric growth in demand for smart phones has also greatly stimulated the outbreak of the mobile phone chip market, which is why Intel has squeezed into this area. According to the yellow section, for this reason, Intel released the Atom processor Z2460 platform, previously codenamed "Medfield", which is designed specifically for smartphones and tablets, offering leading performance and competitive energy effectiveness.

In the first half of 2012, the Intel Atom processor Z2460 platform began to land on smartphone devices. In mid-April this year, the first smartphone XOLO X900 based on the platform was launched on the Indian market; on May 30th this year, Lenovo’s world’s first Intel Inside smart phone, the Music Phone K800, was officially launched; in early June of this year, the operator Orange in the UK Released the first Intel Inside smartphone in the European market.

According to Huang Jie, "The release of this series of products marks the beginning of Intel's plan to extend the advantages of computing to smartphones." At the same time, he admitted, "Intel does not rush to profit in the mobile phone chip market." Because in this market, we are still far less than our main competitor Qualcomm, but we have confidence in our future and are very patient.”

In fact, Intel had already begun the layout of the mobile terminal chip market. In 2010, Intel spent $1.4 billion to acquire Infineon’s wireless business unit, which is the market leader in wireless services and wireless devices for smartphones and ultra-low-cost entry-level phones, providing baseband processors and RF transceiver chips. Power management ICs, additional connectivity features, single-chip solutions, and corresponding system software; Intel subsequently acquired Blue Wonder, a German company specializing in LTE technology, through Infineon, which focuses on the development of LTE products and will make up for Infineon’s long-standing LTE weaknesses in the wireless chip sector.

In December 2011, Intel announced the reorganization of the mobile communications sector, marking its return to the mobile communications market. In May 2012, Intel and Chinese mobile phone maker Lenovo Mobile announced the first high-end smart phone Lenovo K800 equipped with an Intel processor Medfield Atom, which also marks Intel's formal entry into the mobile phone chip field.

Want to copy the glory of the PC chip: to the core of a mobile phone, although Intel officially entered the field of mobile phone chips, but as the market's backward, if you want to gain in the short term or even a certain market share is not easy. For a long time, there has been only one company named AMD on Intel’s competitors. In the new mobile Internet era, Intel has added many new rivals to Intel’s competitive landscape. This is a long list including ARM and Qualcomm.

In the area of ​​mobile chips, ARM, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments did not regard Intel as an adversary because although Intel is eager to enter this field, Intel’s market share is too low. Whether it is Apple's iPhone, or the various Android camps and Windows Phone camps, they rarely use Intel's chips.

Analysts believe that, at present, Intel hopes to enter the mobile terminal market with its Atom chip, and expect that this chip can be accepted by more tablet and mobile phone manufacturers. In fact, the Intel smartphone processor X86 architecture is still slightly inferior to the ARM architecture currently used by Qualcomm in terms of performance and stability.

However, these will not affect Intel's determination to force the mobile phone chip market. Huang Jie said, "With Intel's entry into the PC chip and server chip market, Intel is not the first company to enter these two areas, but Intel has finally become a leader. Therefore, Intel hopes to be able to replicate such a success."

At present, the Intel Atom processor Z2460 platform (Medfield) is only a 32-nm process technology. Huang Jie believes that "it is expected that when Intel's smart phone chips reach the 22-nanometer and 14-nanometer stages, it will really have an impact in the smart phone market."

Huang Jie explained, "The mobile phone process technology will still be slower than the computer, and the acceleration in the later period will be faster. Intel's mobile phone chip process process this year is 32 nm, 2013 is 22 nm, 2014 is 14 nm. Originally, Moore's Law is to turn over every year. The reason is that we started late. However, Intel's breakthrough opportunities should be on 22nm and 14nm chips."

Huangjie also stressed that the entire Internet is based on Intel's entire architecture. Fixed-line applications are optimized on Intel architecture. In fact, we have driven the advantages of the Internet to the mobile Internet. He said, "Intel chips from the architecture to the later manufacturing are all done by themselves. We hope to give the mobile phone a computer core."