Intel's tiny budget processor Atom has basically carried the company to new market shares in Q3. That the energy efficient processor, found in the majority of PC netbooks and nettops, is important to Intel is pretty self explanatory and it will now speed up the introduction of the next generation Atom CPU. The launch slated for January has been moved up to December 21st, which means Intel is completely focused on a quick transition to the new Pine Trail platform.
We have already heard of multiple Intel partners planning to show Pine Trail netbooks and nettops at CES on January 3rd next year, which was the probable the launch date of these. According to confidential documents seen by X-bit Labs the launch has been moved up a few weeks, to December 21st.
The big difference from today's Atom platform is that Pine Trail use only two circuits, Atom processor with integrated memory controller and GPU, and a southbridge. The platform of today has a third chip, the northbridge housing the memory controller and GPU.
It will be focusing on the following models on the launch on December 21st:
- Intel Atom N450: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point;
- Intel Atom D510: dual-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 1MB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $63 price-point;
- Intel Atom D410: single-core with Hyper-Threading support, 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, x86-64, BGA437 package, $43 price-point;
The first systems using Intel's new processors is not expected to appear before January, so any hard Pine Trail packages will not make their way beneath the Christmas tree.
Comment 
Send to a friend
Related news:
2009-11-19 Tranquil PC reveals bits on Atom D510 and coming Home Servers
2009-11-10 Apple locks out Atom with OS X 10.6.2
2009-11-04 VIA Introduces New VIA Nano 3000 Series Processors
2009-10-30 Dual-core Atom D510, 13W and coming soon
2009-10-26 PineTrail finally breaks 2GB limit with Atom platform
Intel moves Atom 2 launch to before Xmas
Noctua
