Chip designer working for Samsung is going to make socs on Intel architecture

The Chinese processor designer Spreadtrum, which makes socs that Samsung and HTC, among others, use in cheaper devices, will make Intel socs. Both companies have announced this. Spreadtrum’s first socs on Intel architecture will appear in 2015.

Spreadtrum supplied Samsung, among other things, with the socs for the Galaxy Pocket 2 and Galaxy Core 2 smartphones, and models from HTC and Lenovo are sometimes equipped with socs from the Chinese company. In addition, the cheapest smartphones in the world with Firefox OS are equipped with Spreadtrum processors. Intel has confirmed it will acquire a 20 percent stake in Spreadtrum’s parent company, Tsinghua.

The agreement means that Spreadtrum and sister company RDA Electronics will design both socs based on Intel architecture. Until now, both processor designers only use ARM architecture. It is unknown whether the Spreadtrum will only make socs on Intel architecture or whether it will also design ARM socs.

Intel is investing more than a billion euros in Tsinghua Group, the parent company. That parent company is owned by the Chinese state. It is not Intel’s only attempt to push its own architecture through agreements in the fast-growing Chinese market. Earlier this year, it already closed a deal with Rockchip.