ARM unfazed by Intel as profits fall

ARM has batted off concerns that it's feeling the pressure from Intel after reporting a 70% year-on-year fall in profit.

Incoming CEO Simon Segars, who took over from Warren East earlier this month, was bullish on the firm’s prospects, despite analyst worries about growing competition from Intel.

He highlighted the firm’s prospects in mid-range smartphones with its new Cortex and Mali chip designs, unveiled at Computex earlier this year.

"I think when we look at our products, they compete very well," he told CNBC. "At Computex, we launched a new family of products targeted at the mid-range of handsets, providing more performance and lower power consumption."

Threat of Intel Silvermont
During an earnings call, Segars fended off analyst questions over the threat from chips based on Intel’s Silvermont architecture, designed for tablets and low-power PCs. Intel has claimed the architecture powers a three-fold boost in performance compared to current Atom chips, at a fifth of the power consumption.

But Segars dismissed the competition and insisted that chips based on ARM’s Big.little architecture would hold the lead.

"You have got to remember, there is actually very little data actually out there to say what Silvermont is going to do," he said.

"From what we have heard and from what we are seeing from the analysis we have done, we are pretty confident that today the solutions around Big.little are going to continue to give ARM performance in power efficiency lead."

Segars also said ARM was looking to boost its presence in wearable technologies and microcontrollers, outlining the firm’s vision to power smart systems for everyday items like cars and dishwashers.

"There is a vast range of end applications that can benefit from embedded intelligence, anything from washing machines, cars, dishwashers, energy controls embedded in light bulbs," he said. "The chips are so low-power, so small, so low-cost that they can be used in many different applications with very little impact to the end price or whatever it's getting designed into."