Intel has woken up to demonstrate a Medfield-based smartphone running on Android Honeycomb, to be a part of the fast growing mobile sector, after a long era of dominance in the computer and server market.

Intel was almost shut out of the smartphone market because of the high power appetite of its chips, replaced by ARM chips made by ARM Holdings. ARM chips consume less power. Apple's iPad runs on ARM chip and it lasts for 10 hours.

Microsoft's upcoming operating system Windows 8 will run on ARM chip design. Microsoft's shaky relationship with Intel has played a vital role in pushing Intel towards embracing Google as its partner to run Android operating system on its processor.

In response to an earlier announcement of Microsoft's desire to port Windows 8 on to the ARM chip, Intel had said that people running Windows on the ARM chip will find that their older Windows software will not work.

Microsoft has accused Intel of being misleading and confirmed that older versions of Windows will run on ARM chip.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini and Andy Rubin, Google's top mobile executive, announced the partnership between the companies at Intel's annual conference in San Francisco.

Intel is banking on new type of chip, Medfeild Atom, which will consume less power to suit the tablet and smartphones requirement. It will have a single processing core and it will be available in devices in the first half of 2012.

Google's Android software was chosen over Intel's own operating system, MeeGo, as getting Intel's chip into phones using Android system is important for Intel to gain ground in the smartphone market, says analysts.

Together, we are accelerating Intel architecture and bringing new levels of innovation to a maturing Android platform, Otellini said.

Microsoft Smartphone Ipad Microsoft