Ricardo B (ricardo.b.delete@this.xxxxxx.xx) on February 2, 2013 6:31 pm wrote:

> Intel's margins in the x86 business because they manage to deliver a win-win: better products
> (performance, power) with lower production costs (area, yield) than the competition.

Intel's competition in x86 has been constrained by the patent and licensing
issues around the various versions of the x86 ISA. In practice, AMD has been
the only plausible high-volume competitor, and when they briefly had better
designs - even with inferior manufacturing - Intel lost share. The more
open - and cheap - licensing of ARM IP allows many more competitors.

> If Intel can deliver the same double-whammy for smartphone SoCs, then
> they'll be able to get higher margins than current SoC manufacturers.

They haven't done so yet. Medfield is too big: I've seen its manufacturing
cost estimated at $18, which would not allow it to compete with existing chips
at a healthy margin. Maybe a shrink and some tweaks can fix that - but it
seems just as likely that the ARM-based chips will also get better and cheaper
(especially with the arrival of much better ARM cores).