Intel Corp (INTC)

[chipguy]

I suspected that I got something wrong when I typed it. It should have read XScale (which came out of Intel's purchase of StrongARM from DEC).

OK. XScale is very distinct from StrongARM in microarchitecture and
design methodology.

The problem with Xscale was 1) it was designed by "B" and "C" teams
who didn't get support like the guys behind the flagship x86 core design
teams, 2) Xscale was made in Intel's high performance semi processes
which were not appropriate (high power/cost) for most ARM applications,
and 3) didn't offer the customizability of alternative paths to ARM.


I still maintain that the decision to sell XScale to Marvell was an absolute disaster and Intel has lost a whole decade due to that fateful decision.

How? It was a minor side line business at best. Marvell isn't exactly
getting rich selling XScale derived products.

Lost a decade of what? A low ROI rump business that distracts from
the x86 cash cows?

Let me ask anyone who thinks doing ARM chips is some magic bullet
for Intel:

What is the value Intel can bring to a low ASP commodity that is
sold in thousands of highly customized variants? There is no magic
Apple A10 high runner merchant ARM processor socket out there for
Intel to aim for. The A10 brings value because its Apple's in-house
processor for a product whose entire platform from silicon to hardware
to OS is a captive proprietary luxury product that sells billions upons
billions of dollars worth of flash memory to consumers at incredible
markup. Everything else ARM is a commodity with dozens of sharks
fighting over every single scrap and crumb.

There is no "there" there for Intel.