ARM to bash 'non-issue' Intel with multi-core chip
ARM's big reveal today of its latest processor design came with the clear message that the company will use its market weight and mobile heritage to fend off challenges from Intel. — Speaking here at the ARM Developers Conference …
Context & Ripple Effects
ARM's developer-conference reveal lands two weeks after Intel spent its own Developer Forum promoting forthcoming handheld platforms for pocketable Internet access, and days after Intel announced LessWatts.org, its open-source push to cut power draw across Linux servers, PCs and gadgets. Intel has already shipped word of a Moorestown-based mobile Internet device product, so the two firms are now aiming at the same handheld socket from opposite ends.
ARM's answer, per the confirmed record, is to call Intel's challenge a 'non-issue' and lean on its mobile market weight — with the InfoWorld pickup framing the new multi-core design around battery life rather than raw speed. That framing choice is the story: the incumbent is fighting on efficiency turf the mobile-native vendor claims as home ground.
First-order effects
- ARM's licensees gain a multi-core mobile design whose headline benefit is battery life, aimed squarely at the mobile Internet device socket where Intel's Moorestown-based product is staking its claim.
- Intel's handheld push now faces a rival architecture backed by ARM's entrenched mobile base, forcing the Moorestown line to win designs on Intel's weakest historical metric: watts.
Second-order effects
- Intel's counter moves beyond silicon into software and ecosystem — the LessWatts.org open-source effort extends its efficiency campaign to Linux servers, PCs and gadgets, trying to neutralize ARM's power argument at the platform level.
- Handheld OEMs gain negotiating leverage as two architectures compete for the same device designs, letting buyers play ARM's IP-licensing model against Intel's integrated platform bundle on power budgets and terms.
Third-order effects
- If power-per-watt remains the deciding metric for pocketable Internet devices, the PC-era clock-speed race gives way to an architectural contest between ARM's licensed-core model and Intel's vertically integrated one — a contest each side must eventually fight in the other's home market.
- The 'non-issue' dismissal sets up the pattern seen throughout this rivalry: whichever firm treats the other's beachhead as trivial cedes the efficiency narrative, and efficiency narratives tend to travel upstream from phones toward larger devices.
The trend: Handheld Internet devices are shifting the ARM–Intel rivalry's axis from clock speed to power efficiency, pulling each company toward the other's core markets.