Intel has been on a spending spree lately, they recently paid $7.68 billion for McAfee and now they just put down another $1.4 billion for the wireless chip division of Infineon Technologies.
Infineon Technologies is a spin off from Siemens; they make semiconductors for different industries, one of their industries covers mobile devices. Specifically, they make the processor found in the iPhone.
David Perlmutter, an Intel executive vice president, said in an interview with The Associated Press, "that the decision to sell the mobile-chip business in 2006 was the right decision at the time and that Intel is buying a more complete lineup of technologies from Infineon than those available in the business it sold. "I hope that we"ve learned our lessons and that we"re way more focused," he said.
Now that Intel has access to a more competitive mobile processor they can make better use of their mobile operating system MeeGo that they have been working on since they acquired Wind River Systems for $885 million last year.
Before MeeGo, it was called Moblin but earlier this year Moblin merged with Maemo and the name changed to MeeGo. MeeGo has been choosen as the mobile operating system of choice by BMW, GM and a few others for their in vehicle infotainment.
With the addition of the Infineon line of processors it puts Intel as the fifth highest supplier of mobile phone processors as long as the deal goes through successfully. Everything is expected to be final by the first quarter of next year.