There was much excitement at the news that Intel had signed a licence for physical IP from arch-rival ARM, but this does not signal a return to designing ARM processors – something Intel abandoned when it sold its XScale business to Marvell in 2006. Instead, it is a sign that the company is serious about its foundry business, and about building on its acquisition of FPGA maker Altera. The company has never been as religious about x86 as sometimes portrayed. It did buy the StrongARM platform, complete with ARM architectural licence, from Digital Equipment, making it the basis of XScale and one of its first failed attempts to get into smartphone processors. And more recently, it has acquired ARM-based chip…