Intel: Chinese microprocessor development inefficient

Intel is impressed by the technology, but not the development…

During Research@Intel Day last week SemiAccurate caught up with Jesse Fang, who heads up Intel
Labs China in Beijing.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) invests heavily in research in China and about 100 researchers – or 10% of the total number of researchers from Intel – are located in Beijing.

They mainly focus is on research in embedded technologies as these are extremely popular in China where regular consumers do not own a PC and never will – but are ready for smartphones and tablets.  Jesse Fang is extremely impressed with the development of China’s own microprocessor taking place at Academy of Sciences in Beijing, but believes that the research is very inefficient.

According to Jesse Fang there is only one group of people and they do both research and development.  Jesse Fang is of the firm belief that research and development are two entirely different disciplines requiring different mindsets and different skill sets. Therefore using the same people for both tasks is very inefficient.

Research is, according to Jesse Fang, about gathering and producing information.  Development, on the other hand, is about turning this information into money.  A number of fabless startups in China are targeting Intel with their development of MIPS-compatible processors including a graphics engine from Inventive that is a American/Chinese company specializing in embedded graphics.

Intel’s major problem in China is that the company only sells finished processors and not IP that could be fabbed locally and combined with IP-blocks from other vendors.S|A

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