CES 2012: Intel eyes Apple iPhone and Windows phones for new Medfield chips

Intel’s new push to get its chips into mobile phones could see a new Intel-powered iPhone as well as Windows devices, the company has said

Intel chips will now power Motorola and Lenovo phones
Intel said it is talking to manufacturers about an Intel iPhone and Windows devices

Dave Whalen, vice president of Intel’s architecture group, said that the company was “talking to everybody” and that they had spoken to Apple among other manufacturers about the use of Intel's 'Medfield' chips in mobile devices.

“When we took over [development] in April we took a conscious decision to focus on Android,” he said. “Windows, other operating systems – we recognize that there will be opportunities. It’s not a ‘no’, it’s just not now. When the time’s appropriate we’ll look at other OSs.”

He added that as iOS continues to grow, “we talk to everybody”.

Apple shifted its computers to Intel chips a number of years ago, but its iPhone and iPad devices use proprietary processors.

Mr Whalen said any evolutions to Intel chips in mobile phones would be driven by demand. “It’s down to our customers – at the moment our customers are asking for Android,” he said.

Intel announced yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show that its first mobile phones would be launched with Lenovo in China and by Motorola elsewhere, likely in the second and third quarters of the year respectively. CEO Paul Ottelini emphasised their improved power management and their graphics capabilities.

“I expect price to be competitive,” said Mr Whalen. “When we first embarked on this journey it was targeted towards the higher end of the smartphone category, but it’s got to be scalable – that means multiple OSs, multiple [mobile phone] radios and multiple price points”.

He added that Intel did not currently see the need for chips in mobile phones to use power-hungry processors with multiple cores. “We don’t frankly see the need for dual core,” he said. “Our single core with hyperthreading allows simultaneous applications – so we get much greater power efficiency. We believe we are at par if not better than our competitors.”

Mr Whalen also characterized mobile phones as a logical extension for Intel, and said mobile manufacturers would be finalizing consistent marketing plans shortly. “We don’t see smartphones as a unique category,” he said. “We see this as computing coming down into a different category and we have 40+ years of experience of computing."