Intel Logo (Photo : Reuters)
Despite the company's lackluster performance in terms of last year's sales output and market share Intel still continues to push the boundaries of mobile computing by releasing its more powerful processor, the latest Atom Cherry Trail chipset family was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress and aims to put Intel on top of the processor market again.
The Atom Cherry Trail family is composed of the x3, x5 and x7 mobile processors. The x3 which was formerly known as SoFIA is designed for mid to lower tiered smartphones and tablets. While the x5 and x7 targets the high-end tablets.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said on Monday, "If you take a look at last year, I think we really made a lot of progress in mobile devices. We went from...really no presence or very low presence in the industry to hitting our goal of shipping 40 million tablets last year."
Intel is widely known as the prime provider of chips that power personal computers as well as data centers, however the company's venture into the mobile market did not capitalize. Intel is still way beyond the success that its closest rivals, Qualcomm and MediaTek, are enjoying, according to Digital Trends.
SoFIA was first unveiled in 2013 as a processor for lower-end smartphones. SoFIA, now called x3 is also the company's first mobile system-on-chip. This type of processors has an integrated radio chip on it and this allows device manufacturers to design slimmer and sometimes more powerful devices.
Intel said that the 3G version of x3 is already out in the market but the 4G version will not available until next year.
On the other hand, the x5 and x7 has upgraded graphics power compared to their predecessors. HP also said that its new chips have improved battery life as well as processing power. Several device manufacturers have already signed with Intel to integrate its chips into their products. Among these big companies were Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba, according to CNet.
Devices integrated with Intel's x5 and x7 processor are expected to be available within the first six months of the year.
