Intel Corporation and Rockchip Electronics arrived into an agreement that will help Intel to widen its coverage and fast track its architecture and communications-based solutions to entry level Android tablets in the global market.
Intel, a global leader in computing innovation, announced the new partnership on May 27.
"The strategic agreement with Rockchip is an example of Intel's commitment to take pragmatic and different approaches to grow our presence in the global mobile market by more quickly delivering a broader portfolio of Intel architecture and communications technology solutions," Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said.
"We are excited to work with Rockchip. With today's announcement we've added yet another derivative to the Intel SoFIA family, and we expect to have them all in market before the middle of 2015. We are moving with velocity to grow Intel's offerings for the growing global tablet market," he added.
The agreement would lead to a development of Intel-branded mobile systems-on-a-chip (SoCs), quad-core platform, which will be built on an Intel Atom processor core and combined with its 3G-modem technology, specifically for entry and low-end Android tablets.
With the global market of tablets expanding and showing more preference to form factor, screen size and prize, the joint agreement offering more products is expected to quickly widen Intel’s customer base. It is also seen to widen the product portfolio of Rockchip, given the flexibility and performance of Intel’s architecture and communications solutions.
"The combination of Intel's leading architecture and modem technology with our leading mobile design capability brings greater choice to the growing global market for mobile devices in the entry and value segments,” Rockchip CEO Min Li also says.
The SoFIA family was included to the mobile product roadmap of Intel in 2013. At present, the SoFIA family is composed of three varied offerings, namely a dual-core 3G version that expects shipping in the last quarter of 2014, as well as a quad-core 3G version and an LTE version both expected in the first half of 2015. The quad-core SoFIA 3G version is expected to have a competitive price, which will be revealed at a later period.
Also, the new agreement stipulates that Rockchip and Intel will sell it to original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers, mainly to the current customer base of each company.
Research says Intel was among the well-known tech vendors deemed to have responded slowly to the swiftly changing computing ecosystem with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Even with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s attempt to focus on mobile space, and with its Atom chips currently selling to big smartphone vendor Lenovo, the company still faces challenges to distribute its chips to an extensive range of systems. Forward-looking, Intel though expects to sell 40 million Intel-based tablets this year, as opposed to last year’s 10 million mark.
