Intel strikes technology licensing deal with ARM

Intel, the world's biggest semiconductor maker, has announced that it is licensing technology from rival ARM Holdings, a move to win more customers for its business that manufactures chips for other companies.The two chipmakers, whose designs and technology dominate in computing and mobile, unveiled the agreement on Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The accord will let Intel offer third-party semiconductor companies its most advanced 10-nanometre production lines for manufacturing the complex chips usually used in smartphones.

Intel, which gets the majority of its revenue from making personal-computer processors, has failed to gain ground in the larger and faster-growing phone market – the stronghold of ARM’s technology.

Chip fabrication

Under chief executive

Brian Krzanich

, Intel is trying to persuade other chipmakers to use its factories for their production. Adding licences for ARM’s technology could open up that business to fabricating chips based on those designs for companies such as Qualcomm and Apple, which now have their chips produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and others.

Intel’s embrace of the competing technology comes as the PC market continues to decline, and growth in the lucrative server-chip market slows. – (Bloomberg)