Intel's mobile market is difficult to save itself

In addition to the operating system MeeGo, Intel is trying to enter the mobile market through 22nm chips. However, it has not seen the products that can be mass produced. It seems that Intel's technology and ambition to enter the mobile market are stranded in the assumption phase.

Intel’s net profit for the first quarter of this year was US$3.16 billion, a significant increase of 29% year-on-year. On the trading day prior to the release of Intel's results, its stock rose 7.8%, the largest one-day gain since March 2009. Can these data prove the growth potential of Intel? It does not seem to be sufficient. On the contrary, the question about whether Intel can win in the future is more and more one after another.

Goldman Sachs analyst James Covero downgraded Intel's stock rating from "neutral" to "sell," noting that Intel stocks have risen by 22% since their first-quarter earnings report exceeded expectations. Covelo pointed out that on the one hand, this year's processor demand may slow down to offset the oversupply of the first quarter shipments, he believes that the first quarter of processor shipments exceed at least 10% of PC demand; on the other hand The fierce competition for ARM-based processors on tablet PCs and ultimately on PCs will also be an unfavorable factor for Intel.

Indeed, when ARM, the dominant player in the field of mobile devices, begins to march into the PC space, Intel will fall into an unavoidable battle with ARM. For Intel, an expeditionary mobile market that has not been able to make any gains, it is faced with the flames that have ignited in the backyard. It can be imagined that the situation is in a dilemma.

Facing the ARM ecosystem In the PC market, Intel, the king of the PC market, is entering the mobile market. It is like leaving a hungry tiger on its own site. Faced with the intrepid group of wolves in the mobile market, can it show its glory on the day?

The development speed and growth potential of the mobile phone chip market are obviously stronger than the PC chip market. This caused Intel to worry about its own future as early as possible, and indirectly blew up several times to enter the mobile market in the last year or two, but the actual effective action is rare.

At the Intel analysts meeting in mid-May of this year, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said that the company's "center of gravity" will shift from PC processors to the fast-growing mobile market, but this does not seem to be enough to demonstrate Intel's advantage, at best, only As Intel's stubborn resistance in the mobile market, the odds of success depend on God's mercy on this bet. At the same time, this led to the ridicule of James Bruce, ARM's director of mobile strategy: "This is not the first time Intel has claimed to focus on the mobile market. They talked a lot about the mobile market, but when they launched mobile products, I also In expectation."

The current ARM ecosystem competition faced by Intel is similar to the Google Android ecosystem faced by Microsoft, Nokia, and Apple. Everyone finds firewood high in flames. Without the support of many partners in the ecosystem, Intel is bound to fall into isolation.

ARM, a British company that licenses IP for survival, has built a huge mobile phone chip ecosystem, although it does not basically produce mobile phone chips. Most mobile phone processor chips produced by dozens of chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, NVIDIA, etc., need ARM authorization. These ARM-supported vendors helped ARM to establish a mobile chip empire. This mobile chip's ecological empire is exactly what ARM has to deal with Intel. ARM's cooperation with partners in the production of mobile phone chips is quite different from that of Intel, which owns the process of designing and producing chips.

It is reported that Intel will launch new mobile chips within 12 to 18 months. In this regard, James Bruce, director of ARM's mobile strategy, said that the mobile market is not a solution to solve all the problems of the market, not just a chip equipped with a variety of mobile phones, also involves a number of mobile phone design needs more Problem with the chip product. ARM's partners are launching many chips at different price points and different performances, enabling the ARM ecosystem to address the entire mobile market.

It is understood that the current ARM chip in the smart phone market accounted for 95% of the share, and even if the Apple iPad 2 and other tablet PCs, ARM's mobile market share can also reach the same level. Such a high market share gives Bruce enough reason to be unabashed: “In today’s mobile market, Intel cannot be considered a competitor because the company has not launched mobile phones at all. So far, there is not yet a smartphone. Using Atom processor." What did Intel do to meet ARM?

Before 22nm came out, Intel said that with its new 22nm triple-gate (3-D Tri-Gate) transistor technology, Intel will obtain its low-power microprocessors to enter the tablet and smart phone chip market and defeat ARM chips. Attacks that may be launched into the PC field. Intel's use of 22nm process technology to produce x86 microprocessors, under the premise of maintaining unabated performance, its power consumption will be lower than the 32nm process and traditional planar transistor devices 50%, thus extending the battery life, improve user experience.

So, can 22nm help Intel clear the barriers to enter the mobile market? Francis Sideco, principal analyst of IHS's wireless communications business, said: "Running along the nm route is absolutely helpful to Intel's breakthrough in the mobile market, but that's only a part of it. System-level optimization is also needed to achieve a high energy efficiency ratio for such devices." Brustein said, "I believe there will be mobile phones with Atom processors in the future. But to be honest, we believe that it is proof that it will be put into production." Even with the introduction of powerful and efficient processors, Intel will face the challenge of gaining market share. The problem. How to single-handedly compete with the ARM ecosystem in a complex mobile market is clearly difficult. Ken Dulaney, vice president of Gartner, said that Intel's 3D triple gate design is not enough to enter the mobile market. One of Intel's particular challenges is communication technology, and Intel has never succeeded in wide area communications.

Moreover, since its inception, ARM has been dedicated to solving energy efficiency problems. While Intel introduced 22nm process technology, ARM's energy efficiency is also improving.

Decomposing the Win-tel Alliance A few years ago, the status between the two fields of PC chips and mobile phone chips was not in violation of the state of the river, and it was being overturned. The development path of mobile phone chips increasingly tends to PC chips. Smart phones have set new requirements for mobile phone processor chips. The process of mobile phone chips has gradually become smaller, and the frequency has become increasingly higher, and the performance has become more and more powerful. This makes the extended use of smartphones and PC overlap higher.

The penetration of ARM into the PC field has accelerated the collapse of the Win-tel Alliance, especially after Microsoft has thrown an olive branch into ARM. In January of this year, Microsoft announced that the Windows 8 operating system will run on both the x86 and ARM architectures, giving ARM the opportunity to advance into the notebook market. According to Xie Lao, director of computing research division of IDC Corporation, with the release of the new Windows operating system that Microsoft supports ARM architecture, ARM will lay a solid foundation in the PC field. It is expected that ARM will occupy 15% of the total in 2015. PC processor market share, equivalent to AMD's current market position. Barclays Capital even stated in the report: "The ARM chip may reduce the cost of the processor by one-third, saving $25 per PC, or about 5% of the total cost."

In this regard, Intel does not seem to worry, Renee James, general manager of Intel's software and services group, said that the ARM SoC version of Windows 8 provides a new mobile experience optimized for tablet computers and clamshell systems, but now and in the future, they None of the existing legacy PC applications can run. Intel believes that tablet computers rooted in ARM chips cannot provide consumers with a complete Internet experience.

The conflict between Intel and ARM is intensifying. In the mobile market, Intel has constantly proposed to enter the market, but the molded product has not yet been released and the schedule of the march is pushed again and again. In the PC market, ARM has taken precautions and has started research and development of new products with many partners. ARM and Intel, backed by ecosystem support, are in full competition.

Tablet PC is Intel's choice to enter the mobile market, but according to Gartner's vice president, the tablet computer is a "sizable smart phone" rather than a small PC, so its manufacturers are mostly mobile phone manufacturers, they have long been with Texas Instruments, Qualcomm or other communications chip vendors have good cooperation and it is difficult for Intel to get involved. Indeed, Apple, which is a tablet computer, and Samsung, Motorola, etc., which are able to perform in the tablet market are all mobile phone manufacturers. The game in the tablet market is not as simple as Intel thought.

According to the latest news, Ma Hongsheng, who is expected to succeed Intel CEO, will become the chairman of Intel China in August this year, which shows that Intel attaches great importance to the Chinese market, Chinese partners and the ecosystem. China has a booming mobile device manufacturer. The Chinese market is always without a miracle. But Intel needs more efforts to create its mobile computing ecosystem in this market and allow it to reach the prosperity of the PC era.