Qualcomm expands into Windows 8 devices

Qualcomm has announced that it will expand beyond the mobile phone business, revealing a Snapdragon S4 processor this week at the Computex convention in Taiwan.
In the announcement, the San Diagan firm said there will be four different varieties of its fresh chip designs, one of which will power Windows 8 tablets and laptops.
Under the branding names Prime, Pro, Plus and Play, the chips will not only control mobile devices and PCs but also HDTVs and set-top boxes.
Qualcomm said its Snapdragon S4 Pro chips have been designed especially for the upcoming Windows 8 RT operating system for tablets and notebooks and will feature the Adreno 320 GPU in order to provide “support for higher resolution displays, as well as hardware and software compatibility with the S4 class”.
The S4 Prime chip will have a 1.5GHz quad-core processing unit as well as Adreno 320 graphics made to power the TV sets, while the Snapdragon S4 Plus featuring dual-core CPUs clocked to 1.2GHz and Adreno 203 graphics is designed for the higher end of the smartphone market.
Qualcomm said the last in its range of new chips, the S4 Play is aimed towards the budget smartphone market.
Qualcomm chose Computex in Taiwan to launch its newest chip designs despite only two months ago blaming Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for chip shortages, saying that it was looking at “several alternative sources” for chip fabrication.
Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2182573/qualcomm-expands-windows-devices