Published in PC Hardware

Intel mobile update prominently features SoFIA

by on25 November 2014

SoFIA is the key for mobile success

It is hardly a secret that Intel hasn't been doing particularly well in the mobile phone area and that it had to buy its way into the tablet market in order to sell 40 million tablet parts this year. Intel hopes that its luck might change as it prepares to ship its first SoFIA low-cost phone silicon.

SoFIA looks like a derivative product that will be sold by Rockchip and Spreadtrum and it will be available in three different iterations in 2015. The first one is called SoFIA 3G and this one is based on a dual-core Atom processor. The 3G in the name tells you that it will only support 3G networks, but Intel is fine since most of Chinese market does not really care about 4G.

Intel should be shipping this SoC right now as its roadmap indicates that this chip is in qualifications in Q4 2014 and should be shipping in the first half of 2015. As far as we know SoFIA uses the Silvermont Atom core. It should be the one that Intel used for Merrifield, Z34XX and Z35XX Moorefield processors.

In order to refresh your memory Intel has two generation of its mobile chips that are shipping in 2014 - all quad-core Atom based and based on 22nm silicon, sans modem. They can support LTE via Intel  XMM 7260 LTE silicon. Intel has a range of quad-core processors that starts with the Atom Z3530 clocked at 1.33GHz and goes all to way up to 2.33GHz with the Atom Z3580.

The successor, called SoFIA 3G-R, is 3G-enabled processor with some Infineon 3G DNA and this part should be ready for qualifications in the first half of 2015. SoFIA LTE will start shipping in mid 2015 and it comes with LTE, quad-core Atom architecture. It is worth noting that these SoCs will be manufactured by TSMC in 28nm despite the fact that Intel has cutting edge fabs.

In 2016 Intel plans to update the SoFIA lineup with brand new 14nm based quad-core designs and it will manufacture the chip in its own fabs.

Intel is not ready to abandon phone market just yet.

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