“Over the decades, legions of companies have found themselves reeling, even wiped out financially, from trying to produce some of the most complex objects made by humans for the lowest possible price,” Ashlee Vance reports for The New York Times.

“Now, the chip wars are about to become even more bloody,” Vance reports. “In this next phase, the manufacturers will be fighting to supply the silicon for one of the fastest-growing segments of computing: smartphones, tiny laptops and tablet-style devices.”

“Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm are designing their own takes on ARM-based mobile chips that will be made by the contract foundries. Even without the direct investment of a factory, it can cost these companies about $1 billion to create a smartphone chip from scratch,” Vance reports. “Even without the direct investment of a factory, it can cost these companies about $1 billion to create a smartphone chip from scratch.”

“Recently, these types of chips have made their way from smartphones like the iPhone to other types of devices because of their low power consumption and cost,” Vance reports. “For example, Apple’s coming iPad tablet computer will run on an ARM chip… ‘Apple was the first company to make a really aspirational device that wasn’t based on Intel chips and Microsoft’s Windows,’ said Fred Weber, a chip industry veteran. ‘The iPhone broke some psychological barriers people had about trying new products and helped drive this consumer electronics push.’”

Read more in the full article here.

[Attribution: Different District. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Judge Bork" for the heads up.]