"The other option is that Intel might be looking to boost the performance of its upcoming smartphone- and tablet-oriented Medfield platform." I'd go with that

"The other option is that Intel might be looking to boost the performance of its upcoming smartphone- and tablet-oriented Medfield platform." I'd go with that one (the first reason was pretty implausible). Get the third party suppliers used to doing test chips on their fab, then pick and choose silicon-proven blocks like the SoC builders on ARM &co are used to. Possibly, it would be a good idea to have more than one buyer (Intel) in that market ...