After acquiring McAfee, the famous digital security company, for security on mobile platform purposes, Intel has now continue its salvation for its huge appetite by acquiring Infineon’s mobile unit ‘The Wireless Solution Business (WLS)’.
The Wireless Solutions Business (WLS) accounted for nearly a third of the Dutch company’s €3 billion ($3.83b) revenue last year. It is sold to the American giant for a sweet $1.4 billion.
Intel’s statement says that the company only wishes to harness Infineon’s knowledge in mobile devices and wireless knowledge, and promises that ‘WLS will continue to operate as a standalone business and continue to support ARM-based devices’. Intel also stated its interest ‘to accelerate 4G LTE’ through the expertise of Infineon, while also not neglecting its on-going efforts with WiMAX, with the overarching strategy being described as ‘a combined path’.WLS today holds leading positions in the field of wireless mobility and cellular platforms for smart phones and ultra-low-cost, entry phones. WLS provides baseband processors, radio-frequency transceivers, power management integrated circuits (ICs), additional connectivity features, single-chip solutions as well as the corresponding system software. This helps to enable the smooth transmission of voice and high-speed data from the backbone of the telecommunication network to the end user’s device. With annual revenue of Euro 917 million, WLS was approximately 30 percent of Infineon’s total annual revenue of Euro 3.03 billion in the past financial year.
Since both the iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4 uses Infineon’s chip, perhaps soon we’ll see an Intel-branded chip in our iPhone, with LTE support very soon next year.
SOURCE via Yahoo! News
