Intel talks new strategy by Expanding Atom with SoFIA and Broxton

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Intel executives said at an investor meeting Intel’s mobile GPU and CPU performance will dramatically increase, while the company shifts to meet new business challenges.

Brian Krzanich announced an expanded Atom roadmap and a change to Intel’s business model at his first analysts’ day as CEO of the company on Thursday.

Krzanich and Intel brass told analysts and investors at the meeting that Intel is working hard to expand its mobile offerings in light of fierce competition in the sector. “I was a little embarrassed that we seemed to have lost our way,” Intel chairman Andy Bryant said during the meeting. “We’re paying a price for that right now.”

Intel’s goal for the mobile sector is to increase mobile GPU performance by 15 times and CPU performance by a factor of five by the end of 2015, according to Krzanich.

Intel’s push to gain some mobile hardware wins in 2015 will be anchored in an upcoming SoC called Broxton, first announced at the meeting, which is the follow-up to Cherry Trail, and runs on the architecture called Goldmont.

Broxton is intended to fill the performance segment of Intel’s 2015 mobile lineup. Krzanich said that Broxton will be unique insofar that it has a “chassis” that can be swapped out and upgraded when Intel rolls out new features. Krzanich didn’t elaborate how exactly this would work.

In the corresponding value segment, Intel will roll out SoFIA. This chip is unique because it won’t be made on the company’s own foundries, instead manufacturing will be contracted out in “the interest of speed.”

SoFIA will come integrated with a 3G baseband when it initially ships. In 2015 this will be upgraded to LTE.

Though initially Intel planned to use ARM technology for SoFIA, Intel confirmed Thursday that it will be based on x86.

Read more at: Intel talks new strategy and expands Atom roadmap with SoFIA and Broxton

 

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That should give a push for Windows 8 in mobile devices. The curremnt Atom chip seems to already do a decent job.

Example: Dell's 8-inch Windows tablet makes a big impression | ZDNet