Intel Debuts Atom Z515 And Z550 Processors
Man, we like how Intel
parties. Rather than standing around in front of all manners of junk
food just waiting for presents, the aforementioned chip maker has
decided it best to give us -- the loyal consumers of the world -- a
gift on Atom's
1 year birthday. Over at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, the
company is joyously celebrating the first anniversary of the
world-changing Atom CPU. Just think -- prior to the Atom, we were
forced to deal with notebooks that could barely last two hours and
didn't have a shot at fitting in our back pockets.
During the past 12 months of MID, UMPC and netbook dominance, Intel has figured it prudent to keep things fresh despite the fact that no real competition has surfaced. Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, held a keynote titled 'Mobility's Next Wave of Growth,' where he proudly presented the first live demonstration of the company's next-generation Atom-based MID platform, codenamed "Moorestown." We're told that this platform showcases a greater than 10x idle power reduction compared to today's Atom-based platform in a side-by-side demo, which is largely made possible by a combination of new power management techniques, a new partition optimized for the MID segments and Intel's Hi-k 45nm manufacturing process.
Moorestown is still slated to land in 2010 and will be comprised of a System on Chip (codenamed "Lincroft") that integrates a 45nm Intel Atom processor core, graphics, video and memory controller, and a companion input/output (I/O) hub (codenamed "Langwell"). Furthermore, it will be accompanied by a new Moblin software version that is optimized to enable the rich, interactive, PC-like Internet experience along with cellular voice capabilities.
On top of all that, Intel also took the wraps off of not one, but two new Atom CPUs. Granted, both of these are designed for MIDs and other embedded applications, but we're all about improving the ultra-ultraportable computing market -- which, honestly, has been seriously deprived of attention here lately. The first new guy is the Z550, which takes the clock speed to 2GHz and features Intel's Hyperthreading technology in a sub-3-watt power envelope. The next one (Z515) brings together Intel's Burst Performance Technology (Intel BPT), which enables it to hum along at 1.2GHz. No mention was made of exact release dates, but we're hoping that this progress means that N280 / Atom 330 successors are just around the bend. Pretty please, Intel?
During the past 12 months of MID, UMPC and netbook dominance, Intel has figured it prudent to keep things fresh despite the fact that no real competition has surfaced. Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, held a keynote titled 'Mobility's Next Wave of Growth,' where he proudly presented the first live demonstration of the company's next-generation Atom-based MID platform, codenamed "Moorestown." We're told that this platform showcases a greater than 10x idle power reduction compared to today's Atom-based platform in a side-by-side demo, which is largely made possible by a combination of new power management techniques, a new partition optimized for the MID segments and Intel's Hi-k 45nm manufacturing process.
Moorestown is still slated to land in 2010 and will be comprised of a System on Chip (codenamed "Lincroft") that integrates a 45nm Intel Atom processor core, graphics, video and memory controller, and a companion input/output (I/O) hub (codenamed "Langwell"). Furthermore, it will be accompanied by a new Moblin software version that is optimized to enable the rich, interactive, PC-like Internet experience along with cellular voice capabilities.
On top of all that, Intel also took the wraps off of not one, but two new Atom CPUs. Granted, both of these are designed for MIDs and other embedded applications, but we're all about improving the ultra-ultraportable computing market -- which, honestly, has been seriously deprived of attention here lately. The first new guy is the Z550, which takes the clock speed to 2GHz and features Intel's Hyperthreading technology in a sub-3-watt power envelope. The next one (Z515) brings together Intel's Burst Performance Technology (Intel BPT), which enables it to hum along at 1.2GHz. No mention was made of exact release dates, but we're hoping that this progress means that N280 / Atom 330 successors are just around the bend. Pretty please, Intel?