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With Infineon unit purchase, Intel buys its way back into smartphone game

Intel's US$1.4 billion purchase of Infineon’s wireless chip business gives the semiconductor giant an entry into the smartphone market, an area where the company has to be present.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Intel's US$1.4 billion purchase of Infineon's wireless chip business gives the semiconductor giant an entry into the smartphone market, an area where the company has to be present.

The Intel-Infineon negotiations have reportedly been going on for months. Now that Intel has Infineon’s Wireless Solutions (WLS) unit, the chip giant has the processors behind Apple's iPhone and entry-level Android devices. More importantly, Intel has a play in the ARM market. ARM architecture is what powers most smartphones and mobile devices. Intel's grand plan was to move its Atom to the smartphone, but that would require mobile device makers to use different architecture. The Infineon purchase gives Intel a bridge.

However, the real irony is that Intel already left the communications chip market once. In 2006, Intel unloaded its communications chip business to Marvell.

Read more of "With Infineon unit purchase, Intel buys its way back into smartphone game" at ZDNet.

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