dgstorm
Editor in Chief
This was a bit of a shock from out of left field late yesterday. Intel announced they will be cancelling their SoFIA platform and the next gen Broxton chips. That basically means they have effectively killed the Atom processor, which has been struggling to make any headway in the mobile world.
Intel did not clarify if this means they are exiting the mobile market altogether or if they are simply planning to move in a different direction with some unknown future tech. The principal reason for Intel's lack of success in the mobile chipset market isn't even just the heavy competition from Qualcomm, Samsung and MediaTek in the space. The fact of the matter is that the Atom chipset never lived up to Intel's media hype in performance or battery efficiency.
Now we are left wondering about future and current tech that utilizes the Atom processor. What does this mean for various mid-range smartphones and the upcoming Microsoft HoloLens? Apparently, they will need something new to power them in the future. Will it be Samsung, Qualcomm or someone else entirely?
For Microsoft at least, retooling the HoloLens for something shouldn't be too tough. In fact, most of the current rumint indicates that Microsoft was already planning on using Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 830 for the Surface Phone. If they are already partnered up with Qualcomm on this device, it seems like it would be easy to replace the internals of the HoloLens with a Qualcomm chipset. This is especially true considering it is still in the prototype stages.
What do you folks think? Is Intel getting out of the mobile market, or will they come up with something to replace the Atom?
Source: SlashGear
