Intel has had limited success in the smartphone market, with the company scaling back its SoC plans a few months ago. Today, they have penned a new deal with ARM, which sees Intel licensing ARM’s technology for use in their Custom Foundry business.
With this deal, Intel will now allow companies that design chips based on ARM’s Artisan Physical IP to manufacture them on Intel’s own 10nm FinFET process. This gives chipmakers an option outside of the main chip manufacturing players such as Samsung and TSMC. ARM licensees who use ARM’s off-the-shelf technology will also be able to utilise Intel’s fabrication to create chips. Unfortunately, licensees who use a lot of their own custom CPUs and GPUs like Qualcomm will not be granted access to Intel’s Custom Foundry. As to who will be the first to take advantage of the Intel-ARM deal, Intel has announced that LG will be the first to “produce a world-class mobile platform based on Intel Custom Foundry’s 10nm design platform.”
Chip fabrication aside, Intel’s deal with ARM will also give Intel an entry point for VR hardware. The company announced at the Intel Developer Forum earlier today that it would be working on an all-in-one headset dubbed Project Alloy.
Source: Engadget, Ars Technica