ARM: Intel has long way to go to catch up in phone market

Noel Hurley, vice president for Marketing & Strategy at ARM's Processor Division, claims Intel still has a long way to go to catch up with ARM in the handset processor segment in terms of power consumption. DigiTimes notes Taiwanese handset makers find the Intel Atom Z2460 superior to ARM-based chips in terms of performance but significantly inferior in battery life.

A comparison between the market shares of handsets and tablet PCs equipped with ARM-architecture processors and models equipped with Intel processors clearly shows that ARM has a significant upper hand in power consumption, Hurley said. For Intel, the rival is not ARM but the powerful ARM army consisting of chip vendors including Qualcomm, Nvidia, Texas Instruments and MediaTek, Hurley emphasized, adding that Intel's advantage lies only in funding.

According to Taiwan-based handset supply chain makers, Intel's Atom Z2460 processor is superior to ARM-based equivalents in performance but significantly inferior in power service life and management. Compared with ARM-architecture processors consuming less than 1W, Intel processors have high power consumption, the sources said.