Intel, Samsung Team Up For New PCs, Chip Microarchitecture
The two companies are embarking on a new co-engineering and co-marketing partnership for PCs they say will push the envelope on mobility, connectivity and performance — and some of the PCs will feature a new chip microarchitecture utilizing different kinds of Intel silicon.
Intel and Samsung have expanded their alliance to deliver a new line of co-engineered PCs they say will push the envelope on mobility, connectivity and performance — and some of them will eventually feature a new microarchitecture utilizing different kinds of Intel silicon.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker announced the expanded co-engineering partnership during the virtual Samsung Unpacked event on Wednesday, where the South Korean tech giant announced several new PCs, including the new Intel-powered Galaxy Book Pro series of laptops.
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The semiconductor giant said it will collaborate with Samsung on a new Intel chip microarchitecture that uses “multiple types of XPU cores,” a reference to Intel’s heterogeneous compute portfolio of silicon that ranges from CPUs and GPUs to FPGAs and other kinds of accelerators. Intel did not provide any further information on the new chip microarchitecture, including whether it is unique to future Samsung designs or part of the company’s existing product roadmap for a broader set of customers.
The Intel-Samsung collaboration will also focus on “unique PC designs with Galaxy DNA” as well as using AI to personalize computing experiences. In addition, the two companies will improve the ways people can work and share files across different kinds of devices.
The new PCs co-engineered by Intel and Samsung are part of the Intel Evo program, which requires OEMs to guarantee a set of “key experience indicators,” like long battery life, for premium laptops in exchange for receiving engineering assistance from Intel.
Intel said there are 75 Evo-verified laptops available now, and the company will launch a global co-marketing campaign with Samsung to raise awareness of new Samsung PCs verified by the program. These PCs will include the “world’s thinnest Evo designs” as well as custom Bluetooth capabilities for “seamless interactions across peripherals and devices,” plus 5G and Intel Wi-Fi 6E connectivity.
“Innovators from Intel and Samsung spent hundreds of thousands of hours together sharing research and developing custom advancements with the aim of staying ahead of — not just meeting — expectations,” Gregory Bryant, head of Intel’s Client Computing Group, wrote in a blog post. “Together, we have co-engineered a new family of PCs that meets all the verified standards the Evo platform promises, including industry-leading responsiveness, instant wake and long battery life.”
Steve Long, Intel’s global vice president of client computing sales, recently told CRN that getting partners to sell Intel Evo laptops is a major priority this year, which is why the company is arming them with a variety of tools to sell the premium laptops in both virtual and physical environments.
“We’re creating some new and dynamic ways with which people in a COVID world interact with products, so that they can understand, touch, feel and walk out with an understanding of what we’re selling and what the partners are delivering to them,” he said.
Ian Fogg, director of business development at Stratix, a Peachtree Corners, Ga.-based mobility solution provider that partners with Samsung, told CRN that the expanded Intel-Samsung alliance “means two leading companies are working to improve the integration of mobile devices and PCs,” which can help partners like Stratix improve the end-user experience for customers.
“Samsung has a history of giving users best-in-class experiences on the mobile side, including flexibility around where and how users interact with their devices,” he said in an email. “Intel has long been an industry leader and a trusted name in speed and reliability. This partnership shows that both companies are committed to pushing the envelope, so I‘d say it’s a really powerful match.”
Fogg added that Stratix’s customers “care about the components inside laptops to the extent that they provide great end-user experiences, so they want to be sure the internal components offer the speed, quality of graphics, and reliability needed.”
“Companies like Samsung and Intel have reputations for delivering great experiences, so our customers have a higher level of trust in those brands,” he said.