(My points are in BOLD)
Interesting article about Intel declining the offer from Steve Jobs to build the processor for Apple's 1st iphone, and the repercussions of that decision.
"Apparently Jobs gave Intel the chance to build the processor for the first (and so presumably subsequent) iPhones. Intel turned them down. Otellini said:
We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we'd done it. The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do. At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn't see it. It wasn't one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.
That was the day Intel failed in mobile. This would have been an ARM-based chip. But at the time Intel had an ARM-based division called Xscale (the old Digital StrongARM) who were desperate for business. Eventually they sold off the whole division to Marvell in 2006."
".......Now Intel will roll mobile in with the non-server processors so the fact that they are currently losing $1B per quarter on it (perhaps $7B over the last two years) will be be hidden from view. Or maybe they are quietly giving up, who knows?
But the next big thing is Internet of Things (IoT) and that is a perfect market for Intel with lots of differentiation, because...nobody has a clue. And margins in IoT are likely to be even lower than mobile and ASPs lower still (these will not be mammoth chips in 10nm). I believe most IoT devices will be build on older nodes so whether Intel is 3 years ahead or not is irrelevant."
What is relevant to me is that Poet at 40nm opens up a world of opportunity (IMO)
Full Article Link: https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/4106-jean-louis-gass%E9e-intel-mobile.html