Is Intel about to announce a foundry deal to make Apple chips today? As my colleague Kevin Tofel has pointed out on more than one occasion, Intel is losing the mobile chip war to ARM. Intel’s Atom mobile chip is seen by most as too power-hungry for use in cell phones and tablets, and as a result the chip-maker is finding itself left behind in the growing mobile market. But according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gus Richard, the company is looking to change all that not by swimming against the current, but by partnering up with Apple in order to make ARM-based chips itself.
According to the EE Times, Richard says that his sources indicate Intel (which recently made forays into the foundry business) is competing for some of Apple’s chip-making capacity. Apple is reportedly looking around for additional suppliers of the A4 and A5 chips it uses to power its iPod touch, iPhone and iPad devices, in an effort to reduce its reliance on Samsung, its existing manufacturing partner for Apple’s ARM-based application processors. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) has been cited as a new foundry partner for Apple in the past, but Richard says Intel is another likely candidate.
