Intel is beginning what appears to be a concerted march into new markets.

This week, the waiting period ended under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, which is basically like a waiting period for a marriage license. With Wind River in hand in an all-cash deal, Intel arguably will have more buttons to turn and more parametric fiddling opportunities than any other processor maker.

The purchase of Wind River enables Intel to develop customized software for individual cores, a step that could dramatically lower the power consumption of chips such as the Atom processor, or to improve performance with hardware accelerators at the upper end of its product line.

That was step one. Step two unfolded two days ago when Intel inked a deal with Nokia for a strategic relationship to develop a next-gen mobile computing device based on the Intel Architecture. Given that the Atom chip currently runs at 2 watts minimum, the market can expect a massive effort by Intel to cut the power with multiple power domains and very exacting software that only does what’s necessary.

“Today’s announcement represents a significant commitment to work together on the future of mobile computing, and we plan to turn our joint research into action,” said Kai Öistämö, Nokia’s executive VP of devices, in a statement. “We will explore new ideas in designs, materials and displays that will go far beyond devices and services on the market today. This collaboration will be compelling not only for our companies, but also for our industries, our partners and, of course, for consumers.” Both Nokia and Intel are under serious pressure to do something

Both Nokia and Intel are under serious pressure to do something different. For Intel, the risk of not doing anything is losing a growth market in netbooks and cross-over devices such as smart phones and living with a flat-to-down PC market. Nokia, meanwhile, is under serious pressure from Apple, whose iPhone has continued marching into Nokia’s territory.

Apple reportedly is hiring its own chip engineers to design lowpower chips for future devices, whether they’re touch-screen netbooks or future iterations of the iPhone. But that also puts Intel into a rather delicate position. Intel sells chips that currently power Apple’s PCs. If Apple develops its own chips, Intel’s market share could be further impacted. And if Intel presses too hard on Apple’s iPhone franchise, the incentive could be much higher to do just that.

Also in the froth is ARM, which has been the strongest player so far in the smart phone world. ARM and Intel have been eyeing each other for years, but now they are about to engage in a major fight. ARM has one of the strongest ecosystems in the industry, while Intel is just starting to build one. As such, this war may be played out in slow motion if Intel builds its ecosystem organically, or it may be played out at much higher speed if Intel decides to buy its way into the market.

So far, there are no clear answers. But the adrenalin level is clearly rising on all sides.

Ed Sperling is Contributing Editor for Embedded Intel® Solutions and the Editor-in-Chief of the “System Level Design” portal. Ed has received numerous awards for technical journalism.