Intel wants to power your next Android smartphone. The world’s largest semiconductor chip maker announced today that they had ported Google’s Android mobile operating system to smartphones based on its Atom microprocessors.
We have seen Android running on the x86 Intel Atom before in tablets and netbooks (I bought one), but this is one of the first times the company has said they plan to target Android smartphones. We expected to see Intel’s Moorestown power some Android phones later this year, but Atom might be used to fill the gap until it is ready. Moorestown is Atom’s successor and Intel says it will offer better performance than dual ARM Cortex-A9 processors.
Virtually every Android phone to date has featured an ARM based processor (Qualcomm, TI, Marvell), so it will be interesting to see something different for a change. I have yet to see any upcoming phones run the Atom processor, but Intel has already partnered with Google to use the CPUs in upcoming Android-powered set-top boxes.