Intel Corporation Message Board

Check out this article by Arnold Frisch. He's what Vinnie would have been if Vinny had been smart, ethical and emotionally balanced...

Content-free posting is going to work. We just have to give it a few more years...

Summary

Intel has a number of positive catalysts lined up in the near future in terms of new product launches. Haswell tablets, ultrabooks and hybrids will start shipping in the summer, while the holiday season will see Intel's cutting edge mobile processors being launched. There is a possibility that competitors may not be able to move to the next Moore generation in time, which means that Intel's manufacturing advantage will become overwhelming in 2014. Intel has already shown how it can use its technological and manufacturing muscle to completely capture an entire industry. The possibility that it can capture a monopoly position in the mobile processor industry is not impossible. I remain optimistic about Intel's prospects and would keep buying.

From Sneha Shah

All about the Haswell, baby...

2013: Year of the Intel Tablet
2014: Year of the Intel Smartphone

[Shorts be afraid - be very afraid...]

The Apple iWatch rumor mill has rumbled to life yet again, with one report that Apple is sampling 1.5-inch OLED displays for the li'l fellow, and a second that long-time iKit assembler Foxconn has received orders for a test batch of the "wearable computing" device.

From the register

Google it. Yahoo won't let me post it...

1.) We know that Intel is going to be two process nodes up on ARM as Intel's 14nm will be in volume production long before ARM's 20nm. This means ARM's 28nm will have to compete with Intel's 14nm FinFET. No comparison. Airmont will be the ARM-Slayer.
2.) We know that the economics of ARM foundries is going to decline steadily. See the article "Intel will win in foundry wars" for the details. Also Intel will be first to 450mm wafers by a long shot. And ARM foundries are taking longer to reach the same yield level with each drop in die size. Intel continues to enjoy improved economics at each node due to superior technology, fabrication and manufacturing.
3.) We know that Intel has a roadmap chocked full of consistent improvements. We will see a plethora of new product announcements all year long. We will see a ton of new Haswell products available immediately after the formal announcement on June 3rd.
4.) We know that we will see more big Intel foundry deals.
5.) We know that Intel is doubling tablet sales each quarter and that the ARM RT is toast.
6.) We know that 2014 will be the year of the Intel Smartphone as 14nm technology will combine with Intel's newly integrated LTE solution to finally offer superior products across the board.
7.) We know that ARM is the most over-valued stock since the dotcom era. With a P/E of 83 and Intel coming on fast there is no way they can grow earnings at a rate to justify that valuation.
8.) We know that with the exception of the blueredmonk that there is no ARM fanboi on this board capable of engaging in a discussion of technology with any semblance of credibility.
9.) We know that new form factors are re-energizing the computer business. We know that only Intel has the ecosystem to provide complete solutions across all of computing and mobility.
10.) And we know that the second half of the year will be much better than the first half with particular excitement brewing for back-to-school and the holiday period.

This is my first article for Seeking Alpha. I am very recently retired from an Intel (INTC) position as chip design engineer with more than 30 years of varied experience in a wide swath of technologies and companies, and I have been a part of at least six startups. I have 27 US patents to my name.

Arnold Frisch

Development of Apple's rumored smart watch is allegedly gaining momentum, as a pair of new reports claim the company is testing 1.5-inch OLED screens for a wrist-worn device, and that Foxconn has been contracted to build a trial batch.

The latest rumors on Apple's so-called "iWatch" were highlighted on Mon by Macotakara. The publication spotted pair of reports from Taiwan's Economic Daily News.

In the first report, the publication claims that Apple is testing organic light emitting diode displays for its anticipated smart watch. The company allegedly tested 1.8-inch panels, but felt they were too big, prompting development to go smaller with 1.5-inch displays.

According to the report, Apple is exploring 1.5-inch OLED touchscreens manufactured by RiTdisplay of Taiwan that use one-glass-solution touch sensors. This would allow the display component to be as thin as possible for the wearable accessory.

It should be noted that rumors for years have claimed that Apple is interested in OLED displays, but to date the company has never used the display technology in any of its devices. OLED screens could, however, be an optimal choice for wearable technology because of their low power consumption levels.

In a second report, the Daily News claims that Foxconn, Apple's longtime manufacturing partner, has already received orders for an "iWatch." However, the initial production run is said to be for no more than 1,000 units, as Foxconn is allegedly running a "small-scale trial production."

With "iWatch" rumors heating up, one survey from last month found that 19 percent of consumers are interested in buying such a device from Apple. That exceeds pre-announcement interest in both the iPad and Intel-based Mac hardware.

Rumors of an Apple smart watch began growing earlier this year, when a number of reports claimed that the company is developing a wearable wrist accessory. One such report claimed that the company has a 100-person team working on the project.

appleinsider

Can PC OEMs put together an ultrathin, touch-screen PC that will both appeal to consumers and come in at just $200? Analysts believe so, but chipmaker Intel holds the key to success.

And that key is almost older than dirt – cut prices.

"A price point that low seems far-fetched considering the mobile PC prices of today, with Ultrabooks and other ultrathins going as high as $1,000 or more," said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS. "However, the small laptops known as netbooks saw their prices reach down into the $200 range at the height of their popularity a few years ago, and a cost analysis of netbooks shows how such a low level of pricing can be used to support a no-frills type of ultrathin PC."

Stice arrives at this conclusion by examining the major components of a netbook on a third-quarter 2013 timeline, and pricing them out at $207.82.

"Hitting this kind of price point is not impossible for the PC industry, already a cutthroat market accustomed to razor-thin margins," wrote Stice on a statement to ZDNet. "Such a possibility was stated by outgoing Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who during Intel’s first-quarter earnings call in April made the bold prediction that touch-enabled, ultrathin Intel-based notebooks using non-core processors could be available by the end of this year."

Crunching the numbers, Stice found that Intel can control up to 33 percent of the total bill-of-materials cost for a PC just through the CPU and motherboard, and that a price break on these components would allow OEMs to drive down prices, which, in turn, would be further pushed down through competition.

While netbooks floundered because of their limited computing power, which in turn made them more suite to content consumption than creation, IHS believes that Intel's Bay trail hardware should give the PC market a "much-needed shot in the arm" and could ignite a new mobile PC market revolution.

From ZDNet

Apple Testing 1.5-Inch OLED Displays For Its Rumored Smart Watch?

A couple of reports today are suggesting that Apple is advancing its development and production of the rumored smart watch. The reports come from the Taiwanese newspaper Economic Times. The first report claims that Apple has started testing 1.5-inch OLED displays from RITEK subsidiary TiRdisplay.

According to the report, RITEK’s joint partnership with RitFast will also supply the touch sensor technology that will be used for the watch.

This report reflects earlier rumors about Apple’s plans for RiTdisplay’s 1.5-inch displays and Intel being involved in the project. Today’s report also mentions that Apple had originally wanted to use a 1.8-inch display in the smart watch. That size proved to be too large, however, so the company decided on a smaller 1.5-inch display.

The second report talked about the smart watch industry as a whole. According to “market rumors,” Foxconn has already received orders for Apple’s smart watch, but only with small volume orders around 1,000 units for small-scale production trial.

The Apple smart watch rumor really picked up speed in December after reports that Apple and Intel were working together to produce it surfaced. Other rumors have suggested that Apple has experimented with curved glass designs for the smart watch’s display. Other than that, the rumor mill has been relatively quiet the last couple of months concerning the Apple smart watch. At the beginning of March, reports claimed that the rumored device could launch this year.

From Macgasm