WiMax Chips Earn Intel a Lucrative Deal

Intel Corp. was recently successful in acquiring one of the most highly sought after mobile chip orders in the industry, the WiMax. Intel's new acquisition has sparked interest from Nokia, the world's top cell phone maker. Using complex semiconductor technology, WiMax chips will become very prevalent in all future Internet-focused Nokia devices. Nokia is expected to release the first batch of WiMax-enabled Internet tablets in the first half of 2008.

Mobile WiMax, the standard in high-speed wireless technology, should support Internet access at speeds as high as five times faster than typical wireless networks. The service is still considered to be slower than the much faster wired services. That being said, WiMax chips are still very impressive. (Source: nytimes.com)

The order has to be considered a major success for Intel. The company has struggled in the mobile phone chip market and sold their cellular chip unit to Marvel late last year. The only bright side for Intel happens to be their role as a major supporter of WiFi wireless research. Their involvement is still regarded as a contributing factor in the widespread adoption of that technology.

Texas Instruments is currently the largest chip supplier for Nokia. The company also has affiliations with STMicroelectronics, Broadcom and Infineon. Nokia does not currently manufacture any mobile devices using Intel chips, though the implementation of WiMax chips could be the start of a future relationship between the two companies.

Intel and Nokia also announced that they were testing inoperability across Intel's forthcoming WiMax silicon "Baxter Peak" for most of their laptops and mobile devices, WiMax devices and WiMax infrastructure equipment. (Source: ciol.com)

Intel and Nokia have already begun comparing these products to other devices currently available on the market. While Intel and Nokia would not comment as to the extent of these comparisons, both companies were reportedly very pleased with the way their products matched up to the others available.

The real success will be measured in customer approval, which the two companies are hoping will translate into increased revenue figures.