ARM and Intel Battle over the Mobile Chip's Future

During the past few years, the lines between traditional computers and mobile devices have been blurring. Meanwhile, wireless consumer-electronics products such as personal-navigation and gaming devices are increasingly accessing the Internet for various tasks, such as retrieving mapping information and participating in multiplayer games. Thus, mobile devices are performing many more computing-related tasks than in the past, which places additional demands on the chips that run them. While doing this work requires mobile processors that provide high performance, they also must manage and conserve power so that they won't quickly drain devices' batteries. ARM Ltd. has dominated the mobile-chip market for about 10 years. Now, Intel, which rules the PC- and laptop-chip worlds, plans to challenge ARM, in recognition that mobile devices have become an attractive market, far outselling PCs and laptops.