Amazon is now becoming a competitor to Samsung and Intel. The eCommerce giant is selling their own brand of ARM-based chips to manufacturers.
The eCommerce Giant Snagged Annapurna Labs for $350 Million
Annapurna Labs is a start-up founded in 2011, based in Israel. It was working on an ARM-based series of midrange networking chips. These were meant to transmit more data while consuming less power. At the time, Amazon was already in the works to move away from using Intel chips, even though they already had low power consuming in their ARM chips. If they found a way to make their own chips, they could end up saving quite a bit of cash.
Alpine Semiconductor Chips Bring New Guns to the Market
Now it is a reality. The new line of chips are called Alpine, and the company is boasting that they will become the foundation for the next generation of digital services for the connected home. In short, Amazon will be selling these semiconductor chips to OEMs and related services. This could include Wi-Fi routers, streaming devices, home gateways and NAS devices.
Having to change hardware every time a tech gadget gets an upgrade is a drag. That’s why the Alpine will be selling incredibly well. Amazon’s platform will give original equipment manufacturers the ability to own a chip that allows them to design hardware that can give them fast connectivity to multiple devices and meet the growing pile of consumer demands. All of this without having to switch hardware or waiting for software updates.
The Scales Are Tilted to Their Advantage
Today, a lot of platfroms use 32-bit ARMv or 64-bit ARMv architectures. This is beneficial to the Alpine chips, because Amazon owns one of the best could computing platforms. Amazon Web Services will be getting deeper into the connected world with the introdcution of the Apline semiconductor chips.
Intel and Samsung Shouldn’t Be Too Worried
Intel and Samsung are the giants of the semiconductor market. ARM chips haven’t made much of an impact yet. But they should’t rest too easy either. Annapurna chips are already in use by relatively large companies like ASUS, Synology and Netgear. The partnership will be shipping out processors to other OEMs and service providers as of this week.
