Intel looks beyond PCs, eyes new segments

The future is in personal computing, not just personal computers, according to Intel CEO Paul Otellini who said his company wasbetting on new market segments such as netbooks, handhelds and consumer electronics to drive growth with PC sales likely to be “flat or slightly up” this year.

Intel, whose range of microprocessors power almost 80% of computers worldwide, also announced that it

has built working chips that pack 2.9 billion transistors in an area the size of a finger nail.

Delivering his keynote at the Intel Developers’ Forum 2009, Mr Otellini also launched an Intel Atom Developer Programme inviting third party programmers to create new programs for its Atom line of microprocessors. Atom powers net books — bare-bone PCs with small screens for net surfing and word processing — a segment, which Mr Otellini said was holding up the whole computer market now.

“We have the worst recession in 70 years. The netbook filled the gap,” he said, adding that Atom will eventually cover connected devices. “At the highest level, every electronic device is likely to be connected to the Internet at some point in time. And we think the architecture to do this, obviously, is Atom,” he said.

Netbooks outpaced the two other popular devices in the consumer market — Apple’s iPhone and the Nintendos gaming console Wii — in the past three quarters, he added. In-vehicle infotainment systems, which clocked a 17% growth rate in the year when the automotive industry slipped to a recession, are another growth area for Intel.

Mr Otellini said that a company that Intel has been working with over three years, Harman Becker, has secured two major design contracts for Atom-based systems. “Daimler will put it into their S-Class and C-Class series starting in 2012, and BMW is developing a cross-platform, which means it goes across all their models, as an option for 2012 and beyond,” the Intel CEO said.

Intel has also begun factory production of its 32 nanometre chip, and the latest one — the 22nm one — continues to deliver the promise of Moore’s Law: smaller transistors, improved performance and lower cost, said Sean Maloney, Intel’s executive vice-president.

“The rapidly increasing number of transistors and processor instructions we add have made possible the integration of more and more capabilities and features within our processors. This has driven an incredible amount of innovation throughout the industry, with the real winners being the consumers, gamers and businesses,” he said.