ARM Cortex netbooks on the way

You may be more familiar with British processor design company, ARM, from its near domination of the smartphone market (including the iPhone) but it could soon be treading on Intel's toes with a netbook capable processor to rival the Atom.

ARM's director of mobile solutions, Rob Coombs, has been telling ZDNet that its spanking new Cortex-A8, will be popping up in netbooks as well as its usual smartphone arena. An announcement is due, "in the next few months", but the first Cortex-A8 based smartphones are expected next year.

Come 2010 we can also look forward to the multi-core Cortex-A9, which should provide some competition for the forthcoming dual core Atom from Intel.

While no manufacturers have been named as likely ARM netbook makers, MrCoombs did point ZDNet in the direction of a published list of ARM's licensees. Samsung and Panasonic are both on there - with NEC and Toshiba on the list for the A9.

ARM's move into netbooks is especially interesting given Intel's stated aim to start placing Atom chips into smartphones next year. We wouldn't be too surprised if the next iPhone has an 'iNtel iNside' badge attached. This could get messy.

[ Crave]