ARM Is Either Frank or Downplaying Intel's Threat Level

Intel and ARM have been throwing jabs at each other ever since their spheres of influence began to overlap, regardless of how little, so here is the latest episode in their rivalry.

Granted, we can't exactly call it a rivalry yet, more like a budding adversity brought about by the strong possibility of one.

After all, until not too long ago, the two had no bearing whatsoever on the other's marketing success. ARM stuck to the phone and consumer electronic business, while Intel led the PC front.

Now, though, with ARM chips getting strong enough for PCs, and Intel doing its best to provide a handset processor in turn, they aren't being quite warm to each other.

This time around, ARM is throwing its two cents, saying that Intel has a long way to go before it can catch up on the handset market.

While the Atom Z series of CPUs is, indeed, stronger (performance-wise), the benefit is more than offset by the power requirements. And this isn't something RM itself said, but handset supply chain makers, according to Digitimes.

And this is actually the heart of the matter: Intel is not, in fact, competing with ARM, but with the many ARM chip vendors that develop processors based on the architecture.

Since Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Texas Instruments and MediaTek all compete against one another, they have more than enough incentive to make better chips in little time.

To become a worthy rival to all of them, Intel needs to create a good x86 chip with power consumption of under 1W. Intel has a long road ahead of it, reportedly said Noel Hurley, vice president for marketing and strategy, processor division, ARM.

Recently, we’ve learned that Intel has begun losing Atom CPU customers, most notably ASUS and Acer, adding an extra level of urgency to its plight.