Intel is back in the mobile chip business with the $1.4 billion purchase of the German-based Infineon’s wireless unit. Infineon provides smartphone chips for Apple’s iPhone, along with several other high-profile handsets.
The deal, expected to close in 2011, reportedly gives Intel up to four years of research and development time and places the chipmaking giant squarely in the smartphone market – a position it gave up when it sold its wireless unit to Marvell four years ago.