Some cell phone makers in Asia will soon put an Intel badge on their phones, indicating that the handset in question runs on a chip from Intel, according to Sean Maloney, general manager of the Mobility Group at Intel. The Mobility Group makes the company's phone, notebook and networking chips.
Phones don't have a lot of spare real estate, "but you'd be surprised where you can put something," he said.
Some Asian handset makers have already started to put an Intel label on the box the phone comes in.
Intel currently has only a fraction of the market for phones. It has landed its chips inside the latest BlackBerries from Research In Motion, but Texas Instruments holds a much larger market share in the overall mobile world.
Still, an Intel Inside push could help the chipmaker. The company pays equipment makers to put the badge on there--and cell phone makers, like PC makers, tend to love those extra marketing dollars.
Intel has been trying to become a player in mobile phones since 2000, but the company has just begun to win contracts with major cellular makers in the past 18 months. In part, Maloney said, the company's presence in phones is increasing because phones are starting to act more like PCs.
"More and more phones will have intelligence in them," he said.
