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To: puzzlecraft who wrote (99309)	5/17/2001 9:08:43 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Reuters version of Intel / wireless components sales story. Intel Sees Huge Wireless Component Sales May 17, 2001 8:11am ET By Jana Sanchez AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Intel Corp underlined its aggressive expansion plans in the communications arena when the world's largest chip maker said on Thursday it could generate sales worth tens of billions of dollars with chips for cellphones and handheld PCs. "(For Intel) this market could be tens of billions of dollars," Ron Smith, senior vice-president and general manager of Intel's wireless communications and computing group, told Reuters in an interview at a developers conference. The average cellphone has $60 worth of silicon components. With over 400 million handsets sold last year alone, the market is worth $24 billion annually, he said. As phones become smarter and sales continue to rise, Intel wants a large chunk of that market. To that end it unveiled its Personal Internet Client Architecture (PCA) on Thursday. Intel said it has designed all key components of wireless devices on a single chip. British Telecommunications said it would develop applications that could work with Intel's PCA architecture. Smith gave no deadline for Intel achieving its billion-dollar wireless component sales goal, saying only: "Some time in the future." Intel's sales totaled $33.7 billion in 2000, of which over three-quarters were generated by microprocessors and equipment for personal computers (PCs) and server computers. However, as computer market growth is slowing -- the U.S. PC market even dipped into negative territory in the first quarter of 2001 -- Intel is investing heavily into communications technology for Internet traffic computers and wireless devices. It is dedicating around one-third of its 2001 research and development budget of $4.2 billion to communications products, and it has spent close to $5 billion on takeovers in that area in the past few years. Besides BT, Smith said Intel was working with dozens of partners on its new architecture for handheld devices. "We work with just about everyone, including a number of European manufacturers," he said. The wireless semiconductor area is dominated by companies such as Texas Instruments, Philips Semiconductors, Motorola, St. Microelectronics and Toshiba, but Smith said Intel has an advantage as phones become small computers that have to process data information, in addition to voice. "It's all about data, and that's where our historic strength is. It's all Internet. There's no separate Internet," he said. By combining the key components of a cellphone on a single chip, including a radio function, a processor, memory and the ability to convert speech into data and vice versa, Intel said it will reduce the energy consumption of a phone. Like most other communication chip makers, Intel buys a lot of core chip architecture from outside design shops. Also on Thursday it said would license technology from TTP Communications Plc as it licenses ARM designs. British Telecommunications said it chose Intel because it recognized that the configuration between handsets and wireless networks is becoming more complex, because of the Internet, and need to be standardized to work. "Our vision is that customers want to get their data on a wide range of devices (PCs and cellphones alike). This means a closeness between network architecture and semiconductor architecture," said Nick Reede, chief technical officer of BT Exact Technologies. (Additional reporting by Lucas van Grinsven in London) Copyright © 2000 Reuters Limited.