Arm Holdings PLC aims to gain more than 50 percent of the Windows PC market in five years, CEO Rene Haas said on Monday as Microsoft Corp and its hardware partners prepare to launch a new batch of computers based on the British chip designer’s technology.
Demand for use of Arm’s technology in PCs received a boost after Microsoft last month unveiled ambitious plans to launch a new line of PCs with artificial intelligence (AI) features to compete with Alphabet and Apple Inc.
Its flagship Windows operating system is now to run on chips designed by Arm, whose technology powered the rise of smartphones. Chips made by Intel Corp have dominated the PC industry for decades and if the Arm push succeeds, it would reorder the market.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
“Arm’s market share in Windows — I think, truly, in the next five years, it could be better than 50 percent,” Haas told Reuters in an interview.
Microsoft has made a significant commitment to ensure its alternative technology to Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Intel’s x86 technology is embraced by consumers, building a suite of software developer tools to make it possible to produce programs that function on Arm-based chips.
“They’ve [Microsoft] gone way beyond anything they had [in developer tools] and they really picked it up in the last couple of years,” Haas said. “They are very, very much committed from a software standpoint.”
Microsoft and hardware vendors are following in Apple’s footsteps. The company has achieved success following its introduction of Arm designs. It has sold machines with its “M Series” processors for roughly four years and those chips offer long battery life and speedy performance.
Qualcomm Inc has designed the first Arm-based chip to introduce consumers and businesses to the new Windows-based Arm machines, but other vendors will follow, Haas said.
Microsoft also has a battery of device makers signed on to sell machines with Arms-based system such as Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and Dell Technologies Inc.
At his keynote speech delivered at the Computex Taipei trade show earlier on Monday, Haas said he expected 100 billion Arm devices worldwide would be ready for AI by the end of next year.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS