“Intel announced on Tuesday that it had snagged a leading phone maker as one of the first customers for its new service to manufacture mobile computer chips based on designs from ARM Holdings,” Aaron Pressman reports for Fortune. “Intel said South Korean phone and appliance maker LG Electronics agreed to buy Intel-manufactured mobile chips. LG ranked third among smartphone makers in the second quarter, grabbing 14% of the U.S. market, according to Kantar Worldpanel.”
“The Intel-made ‘system on a chip,’ based on ARM mobile designs, will be manufactured for LG phones on a 10-nanometer scale manufacturing process, which will be the smallest and most efficient size on the market when it becomes available next year,” Pressman reports. “Chips in the most recent iPhone were manufactured at larger and less advanced 14 nm and 16 nm sizes.”
“But in the future, Apple might be a likely Intel chip manufacturing customer, some analysts said. Apple designs its iPhone chips using modified ARM plans and then outsources the manufacturing,” Pressman reports. “There are possible hurdles. ARM has licensed limited capabilities to Intel, so highly-customized designs such as Apple’s may not be included. Also, Intel expects to start making 10 nm scale chips next year, but it has already had scheduling setbacks and its latest high-end PC chip family, known as Kaby Lake, is being made at the older 14 nm scale.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The more chip stampers Apple has to play against each other, the better.