Death of Intel's Atom casts shadow over rumored Surface Phone
Intel's plans to discontinue its Atom chips for smartphones and some tablets may not have killed the dream of a Microsoft Surface phone -- just the piece of it that made it so enticing.
In the wake of a restructuring that relegated the PC to just another connected device, Intel confirmed today that it has cancelled its upcoming SoFIA and "Broxton" chips, following its decision to cancel its Atom X5 chips, also known as "Cherry Trail." That leaves Intel with just one Atom chip, "Apollo Lake," slated for convertible tablets.
Microsoft has never formally commented on its future smartphone plans, save for a leaked email that suggests that Microsoft is committed to the Windows 10 Mobile platform and phones running ARM processors. But fans of the platform have long hoped for a smartphone that could run native Win32 legacy apps as well as the new UWP platform that Microsoft has made a central platform of Windows 10. The assumption was that this would require a phone running on an Intel Atom processor. Intel's decision eliminates that option.
