Sep. 23--SAN FRANCISCO -- When Intel chief executive Paul Otellini drew up a road map for the chipmaker at its annual technology showcase here Tuesday, he laid out a number of sharp left turns.

Phones, TVs, software -- even "infotainment" in cars -- are now signposts on Intel's path as computing moves off the desktop and into the full spectrum of mobile and consumer electronics.

Intel has long sought -- generally without success -- to break out of its core market of making microprocessors, which are the brains inside PCs, corporate servers and laptops. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Otellini described a future where the desktop PC is no longer at the center of the computing world.

As computing evolves, Otellini said, Intel aspires to keep up with new classes of chips customized for a host of devices. Intel, which has for many years enjoyed the dominant position in computer microprocessors, will have to re-establish itself in the much more competitive, fragmented landscape of personal devices.

"This is a profound shift for Intel, moving from the PC focus that we had to making all computing personal," he said.

Intel employs 15,000 people in Oregon, more than any other business. It develops its most advanced chip technology in a Hillsboro research factory called D1D, which has just begun the first production of Intel's next generation of chips built on a smaller standard of 32-nanometer circuitry.

And on Tuesday, Otellini showed off the first working models of a new class of chips with even tinier, 22-nanometer circuits -- also developed in Hillsboro.

Intel's historical path to technical superiority has been smaller, faster chips. But in smartphones and other mobile devices, the latest and greatest computing power is less important than extending battery life and bringing down prices. And if Intel hasn't lost its appetite for PCs, it's hoping to add to the menu.

Speaking Tuesday to hardware engineers, software developers and others in a highly technical audience of 4,000, Otellini argued that it's in their interests to travel the path Intel laid out. With Intel architecture, he said, software developed for a PC can be easily adapted to perform on a new class of emerging device -- perhaps a cell phone handset still on the drawing board.

"The goal that we have for developers is very simple," Otellni said. "Write once, and have it run on all devices."

All devices, that is, that adopt Intel standards and employ Intel chips.