Report: Intel Will Speed Up Mobile Chip Development

Intel’s (INTC) new chief executive Brian Krzanich said the chip maker will speed up the rollout of mobile processors for smartphones, tablets and wearable devices but its enthusiasm for television may be waning, according to a published report.

Right out of the gate upon taking Intel’s helm last May, Krzanich signaled he will drive the company to make up ground in the mobile market. And he appears to be following through. Krzanich and Intel president Renee James told Reuters last Friday that wearable mobile devices such as eyeglasses, earpieces, wristbands and watches will become a hot battleground in the near future—one in which the chip maker intends to be a serious contender. To cement his point, he said he had a Google (GOOG) Glass device packed in his bag.

“I think you’ll start to see stuff with our silicon toward the end of the year and the beginning of next year,” Krzanich said. “We’re trying to get our silicon into some of them, create some ourselves, understand the usage and create an ecosystem.”

According to the report, the Intel execs said the company will devote more resources to Atom mobile chip production, perhaps moving manufacturing from older production lines to newer plants.

“We see that Atom is now at the same importance, it’s launching on the same leading-edge technology, sometimes even coming before Core,” said Krzanich. “We are in the process of looking at all of our roadmaps and evaluating the timing of some of those products. It’s fair to say there are things we would like to accelerate.”

By contrast, Krzanich seemed more hesitant on Intel’s move into television, sounding certain of the vendor’s technology but unconvinced on the business case.

“We believe we have a great user interface and the compression-decompression technology is fantastic,” Krzanich said. “But in the end, if we want to provide that service it comes down to content. We are not big content players.”