Wireless Will Wag The Chip Dog

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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — A proliferation of smaller, mobile computers and
the demand for more valuable services on handheld devices will drive
innovation in the chipmaking market, said Intel CEO Paul Otellini at the
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo here.

The prospect of mobile technologies pervaded a question-and-answer session
between Gartner analysts Ken Dulaney and Steve Kleynhans and the top
chipmaker’s chief during a keynote session.

Questions not asked included how Intel (Quote) intends to defend itself from a patent infringement suit from Transmeta and the European Commission’s probe
into Intel’s alleged anti-competitive practices.

Everything else was pretty much fair game, including the requisite questions
about top Intel rival AMD (Quote).

Paul Otellini

Source: Intel

Otellini said Intel and other vendors have to be ready to bring products to
bear for what he calls “broadband to go,” the idea that mobile and wireless
technologies will spur the high-tech sector to new heights in adoption and
new opportunities to make money.

“This shift to mobility is inexorable in my mind,” Otellini said, noting
that, just as mobile devices are getting more portable, 4G services will
become more readily available from carriers looking to make those devices
more valuable for consumers and boost the bang for their buck.

Despite competitive pricing that has squeezed PC makers in the desktop
market, Otellini said he expects over 200 million PCs to be shipped globally
this year, thanks to emerging markets such as China and South America. Most
of the new machines will likely be notebooks, he said.

Otellini also said Moore’s Law (define) is safe for awhile.
He said he expects chips built in the 45 nanometer process to hit the market
next year; Intel has 15 currently in development to meet that goal.

Otellini also claimed the company has a working transistor built in a 11
nanometer form, but this is years away from reaching fruition. Intel also
recently showed off a prototype device with 80 cores on one die that is
capable of processing a teraflop.

A conversation with Otellini wouldn’t be much fun without throwing No. 2
chipmaker AMD into the mix.

Kleynhans asked the CEO how Intel would prevent AMD from out-innovating it
in the future.

“Run faster,” Otellini said, without bristling at the question. “I would say
we nicely out-innovated them and you should ask them what they’re going to
do to keep with us. We’ve refreshed 100 percent of our product line in the
last 100 days.”

The question is a fair one; many semiconductor analysts have said AMD gained
market share by adding features in its chips that Intel doesn’t have, such
as memory cache directly integrated on the die.

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