Intel and Micron Technology will make an announcement about NAND flash on April 14. The companies have not disclosed the details. "I believe that they will announce the finalization of their Singapore agreement-IMFS-that will bring up 25nm first and then 20nm later," said Alan Niebel, CEO of Web-Feet Research.

Intel has designed a handset that may be manufactured by China's ZTE, according to people with knowledge of the plan. The phone, based on a version of Intel's Atom microprocessor, may go on sale in China.

IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), Intel and Micron's joint venture, released 25 nanometer (nm) circuitry a little over a year ago. In the next few weeks, IMFT plans to annouce 20nm NAND flash chip production.

Analysts at Barclays and UBS had speculated that shutdowns at Mitsubishi Gas would deprive some chipmakers of a chemical resin used to package their products, causing supply disruptions.

If true, this report confirms the February statement of Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who said Microsoft has paid Nokia an "incredible" amount of money for the smartphone deal.

"Leading-edge capacity excess, driven by Globalfoundries' expansion primarily, means pricing is going to come down," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. "As leading-edge pricing comes down, so does the trailing-edge [pricing], hollowing out the business. That means real trouble for Globalfoundries and TSMC over the next few years." He conceded that Samsung was a different case with its memory and logic operations.

Micron Technology has acquired Canon's interest in Tech Semiconductor Singapore for about US$121 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Micron also seems to be taking the lead in its joint venture with Intel.

The chipmaker made the announcement Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress, where it also introduced mobile communications chips for phones. Medfield is Intel's second smartphone processor. The first, Moorestown, did not have much success in the market due to power consumption too high for smartphones.

What Intel CEO Paul Otellini said would rejuvenate his company, Cisco CEO John Chambers thinks could kill everything in its path.

Intel seems very optimistic about its upcoming smartphone core, dubbed Medfield, but so far remains tight-lipped on possible partners or any further information besides saying that it is a "pretty exciting" time for them.

Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith reiterated that the chip giant will be a strong player in the fast-growing mobile device market despite early struggles. Intel, which provides microprocessors that run about 80% of the world's computers, has been slow to gain traction in the smartphone and tablet markets. Products based on ARM Holdings PLC (ARMH) architecture have dominated the industry, with the chips seen as much more power efficient than Intel processors.

Intel has announced that the company is sampling its 32nm "Medfield" handset chip with customers. Scheduled for introduction this year, the Medfield chip will extend the performance benefits of Intel architecture into a low-power solution specifically designed for the smartphone market segment.

The TI OMAP 5 offers quad-core computing at up to 2GHz with power consumption barely breaking into double-digit wattage figures. In terms of raw figures, that level of performance is very near that of current Intel and AMD desktop chips.