Intel preps faster Meroms for Santa Rosa

A FRESH family of Merom notebook chips is being prepared for the introduction of Intel's Santa Rosa platform in the second quarter of next year.

According to roadmaps shown to Intel OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), the T7700 will be introduced to coincide with the introduction of Santa Rosa, along with a dual core ultra low voltage, the U7500.

Santa Rosa is Intel's codename for a so-called platform - the combination of microprocessor, chipset, wireless LAN Kedron, Windigo WWAN, and media sharing software.

In the third quarter of next year, Intel will also change the socket for its Merom based Celerons from Socket M, to Socket P.

Intel sees its OEMs producing Santa Rose products with a 12-inch or less screen size, a weight less than four pounds, and with a battery life of over five hours, all launched at mainstream prices.

We will have to wait a while before we see notebooks based on its current Napa platform, which is being refreshed and will support Core 2 Duos including the LV L7000. That set of features will be displaced by Santa Rose in Q2 of next year.

The ramp of notebook dual core chips will be 95 per cent by the end of the year, going into overdrive in the fourth quarter, Intel is forecasting.

Meanwhile, Intel will introduce its L2500, a 1.8GHz 2MB of cache low voltage chip on the 3rd of September, priced at around $320. The L2400 will drop in price by around $30 or so then. It will also introduce the 1.06GHz, ultra low voltage U2400 with 2MB of cache and a 533MHz system bus on that date for $260 or so. µ