元器件交易网讯 5月4日消息，据外媒报道，联想CTO彼得·霍尔登修（Peter Hortensius）在采访时确认，联想已成立一个小型芯片设计团队。同时彼得称今年是可穿戴设备关键的一年，但竞争激烈程度倍增，对于可穿戴来说同样是相当残酷的一年。

　　2014年可穿戴设备需要证明自己可以“超出健身设备”，彼得称“显示屏、输入方式和尺寸的限制使得可穿戴设备很难找到成功的范式”。

　　前IBM PC高管表示联想“有一些完成这一范式的想法，新兴市场提供了大量实践的可能，我们也有了自己的研究方向”。但他拒绝回答今年联想是否会推出第一款可穿戴产品。（元器件交易网毛毛  摘译）

　　以下为原文：

　　Lenovo CTO Peter Hortensius has confirmedin a wide ranging interview that the $34 billion computer giant has establisheda small chip design group. He told EE Times that this year is crucial for thewearables sector and weaker businesses may fold under the intense competition.

　　A shakeout in wearables is dead ahead,according to Peter Hortensius. In a wide ranging interview, the chieftechnology officer of Lenovo told us it's a pivotal year for the nascent sectorand also confirmed that the $34 billion computer giant has created a small chipdesign group.

　　2014 is the year wearables have to provethey can "expand beyond fitness devices," said Hortensius, notingtheir "inherent limits in display, input, and size that make it difficultto find a winning formula."

　　Lenovo "has some ideas on how to do itand others do, too. It's very much a nascent market with a lot ofexperimentation going on, and we've got our own studies," said theengineer and former IBM PC executive, declining to say whether Lenovo will fieldits first wearable product this year.

　　Peter Hortensius

　　Hortensius: We'd like to have the abilityto implement core design features in silicon over time, but we are not tryingto be a CPU company.

　　Hortensius did confirm the company hasestablished a small chip design team. Last year EE Times reported Lenovoplanned to expand a 10-person team into a 100-person unit to design chips forsmartphones and tablets.

　　"We do think having some SoC designcapability is important. I wouldn't say it's a major thing or massiveinvestment. Right now it's just building up core skills. We'd like to have theability to implement core design features in silicon over time, but we are nottrying to be a CPU company."

　　Some chip design is currently in progressin the company's PC and smartphone division, he added.

　　Today, Lenovo invests less than 2 per centof its revenues in R&D. The figure may edge up slightly when plannedacquisitions of Motorola Mobility and IBM's x86 server group close, probablylater this year, he told us. Lenovo expects to gain an estimated 2,500engineers from Motorola and another 2,000 from IBM, adding to its totalheadcount of about 46,000 employees.

　　Like many companies, Lenovo has beenexpanding its ranks of software developers faster than its hardware engineers."But we still believe it's really the balance of the two that creates thebest differentiation."

　　Lenovo operates an online store forChinese-language apps on Android, Hortensius noted. It logs some 20 milliondownloads a day and has had 6 billion downloads total to date.

　　On ARM vs. x86

　　With its plans to acquire Motorola'ssmartphone business and IBM's x86 server group, "it's almost abalance" when it comes to using the competing processor architectures,said Hortensius.

　　"We already do a huge amount ofbusiness with ARM, AMD, and Intel today, and we are quite comfortable with whatthey all offer."

　　However he was not bullish on ARM servers.He characterized them as "still an emerging trend more experimental thanin any large deployments—there are challenges anytime you are the newguy."

　　In tablets, Lenovo already makes bothARM-based Android systems and Windows-based x86 and ARM devices. "It's amix, and we've had good success in both," he noted, although Lenovo ranksfourth in tablets behind Amazon and Asustek today.

　　Lenovo is the only PC maker with asignificant business in both smartphones and tablets, Hortensius told us.However, more than three-quarters of the company's revenues still come fromtraditional desktops and notebooks (below).

　　Lenovo revenues by product

　　Hortensius has been in the CTO role just 30days. He has held a variety of positions since he came to Lenovo in 2005 withthe acquisition of IBM's ThinkPad notebook group.

　　"I'll help do the work to make surethe big acquisitions close and, beyond that, find the elements of a techstrategy that is more than the sum of the parts," he said, noting cloudservices will play a role tying the various systems together.

　　In servers, the IBM deal will give Lenovothe scale and design capabilities it needs to compete in the fast-growing datacentre segment. It already sells to China's big Web companies such as Baidu andTenCent.