ARM Partners With Taiwanese Makers to Tap Netbook Market

Silicon IP supplier ARM of the United Kingdom will work with Taiwan`s contract ICT manufacturers for a slice of the netbook market, which is dominated by Intel.

Taiwan`s industry watchers estimated the partnership to benefit Taiwan`s manufacturers by being contract suppliers to both ARM and Intel.

ARM Chief Executive Warren East pointed out his company would enter into alliance with Taiwanese ICT manufacturers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, HTC Corp, Asustek Computer Inc, and Acer Inc as well as international chip designers Nvidia, Qualcomm, TI, and Freescale to introduce its version of netbook, called Smartbook.

Netbooks have achieved impressive sales worldwide along with mobile Internet device (MID), another Intel-dominated market.

Smartbook is said to hit shops at around $199 per unit, compared with $399-599 for a netbook equipped with Intel Atom processor. Qualcomm announced Smartbooks using its Snapdragon platform would be available in the second half this year.

East pointed out that ARM had emerged as the world`s No.1 silicon IP licenser, authorizing over 200 chip companies including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), United Microelectronics Corp (UMC), Global Unichip Corp and Faraday Technology Corp to use over 500 patents on its microprocessor designs over the past seven years.

Source: CENS