Is Japan Gunning for Intel?

By Anders Bylund | More Articles
September 3, 2009 | Comments (1)

Watch stocks you care about

The single, easiest way to keep track of all the stocks that matter...

Your own personalized stock watchlist!

It's a 100% FREE Motley Fool service...

Click Here Now

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC ) finally has a rival not named Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD ) . Or does it?

Japanese business magazine Nikkei Business News reports that a mighty pack of household-name technology firms have joined forces to create a groundbreaking new microprocessor standard. The all-star list of contributors includes Toshiba, Panasonic (NYSE: PC ) , Hitachi (NYSE: HIT ) , and Canon (NYSE: CAJ ) -- a list of adversaries that would strike fear into the heart of anybody, including the mighty Intel.

But I'm not so sure the Japanese are out for Intel's blood. The new chip architecture is targeted at "a range of consumer electronics, servers, robots and cars" and will include innovative power management features. The development team is headed up by Dr. Hironori Kasahara, a professor at Waseda University whose research specializes in parallel computing -- running a program on several processors at once to improve performance.

The Japanese government will contribute a modest $40 million or so to the chip project, and the rest is up to Hitachi, Panasonic, and their cohorts. By the end of 2012, we should see shipping products. But even then, Intel shouldn't panic. Japan isn't really attacking its territory.

Yes, Intel and AMD already sell multi-core processors that work like a gaggle of separate chips, and that profligacy will only increase over the next few years. But the pair of American innovators likes to focus on desktop, laptop, and server systems more than on controllers for robots, cars, and consumer electronics. If there is an obvious rival for the Japanese collaboration, it would be ARM Holdings (Nasdaq: ARMH ) , whose technology shows up in everything from smartphones to Blu-ray and DVD players.

And this is, after all, a new technology that probably won't be compatible with Intel's long-running x86 technology. I'd be surprised to see Toshiba selling laptops built around this new project, and you're not likely to get Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT ) Windows running on it anyway. So rest easy, Intel investors. Japan is gunning for somebody else.

The semiconductor space is never boring. Tap into CAPS coverage of the chip sector to stay informed, enriched, and entertained.

Best Odds in the Universe!
If you're interested in a 98.79% chance at beating the market... and a 70.84% chance at DOUBLING the market's return – Motley Fool Supernova could be just what you're looking for. And get this: We arrived at these odds from 10,000 random back-tested portfolios composed of Motley Fool Co-founder David Gardner's personal stock picks.

It's why David recently handpicked a small team of world-class portfolio managers. You see, he thinks these odds can get even better! And he'd like to prove it to you...

Simply enter your email address. And the answer to the question everybody is asking will be delivered to your inbox!

Intel and Microsoft are Motley Fool Inside Value selections. The Fool owns shares of Intel. Try any of our Foolish newsletters today, free for 30 days.

Fool contributor Anders Bylund owns shares in AMD, but he holds no other position in any of the companies discussed here. You can check out Anders' holdings or a concise bio if you like, and The Motley Fool is investors writing for investors.

Read/Post Comments (1) | Recommend This Article (5)

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

Report this Comment On September 06, 2009, at 3:34 AM, Scunnerous wrote:

This reminds me of the declaration by the Japanese in the early '90s that they were going to subsidize their software industry to create giant programming factories with new programming methods which would allow huge teams of programmers to churn out vast amounts of code for operating systems and applications... essentially putting everyone else out of business.
Even Intel, despite billions of dollars wasted and misguided use of an impressive pool of design talent, could not impose its EPIC architecture on the computer industry. For the foreseeable future, as the article mentions, the server/desktop space will be x86, actually AMD64, and for the mobile space it's ARM. Anyone who thinks otherwise has not comprehended the huge investment required, and logistical turmoil caused, by having to reprogram existing infrastructure and applications for a new computer architecture.

Add your comment.

Compare Brokers

Fool Disclosure

DocumentId: 977444, ~/Articles/ArticleHandler.aspx, 2/11/2012 3:07:44 AM

Report This Comment

Use this area to report a comment that you believe is in violation of the community guidelines. Our team will review the entry and take any appropriate action.

Sending report...

Today's Market

updated 4 hours ago Sponsored by:
	DOW	12,801.23	-89.23	-0.69%
	S&P 500	1,342.64	-9.31	-0.69%
	NASD	2,903.88	-23.35	-0.80%

Create My Watchlist

Go to My Watchlist

You don't seem to be following any stocks yet!

Better investing starts with a watchlist. Now you can create a personalized watchlist and get immediate access to the personalized information you need to make successful investing decisions.

Data delayed up to 5 minutes