Intel gets flash to do more

Intel has released two flash products with which it hopes to exploit further the need for powerful but small chips in communications products.

The 1.8-volt Intel StrataFlash Wireless Memory product is the first 0.13 micron flash product and 'stacks' silicon to allow 1GB of data to be stored, while the Intel PXA261 and PXA262 microprocessors combine XScale-based processing power with StrataFlash memory chips in a single package.

The ultimate goal, currently going by the code-name Manitoba, is a 'wireless internet on a chip' product.

The idea is to provide flexible building blocks for future mobile and wireless devices.

Gordon Graylish, Intel EMEA sales and marketing director, said: "We, as an industry, are not very good at predicting what people will use a device for. We can't fall in love with the technologies."

In line with this approach, Intel last week opened its Intel Personal Client Architecture (PCA) Software Optimizations Lab in Stockholm. The hardware company already has around 6,000 software engineers of its own, and the idea is to make it easier for companies to port software from one device to another.

"This is a problem we solved in the computer [PC] industry 20 years ago," Graylish added.