Banias chipset, battery details revealed

IN A CONVERSATION WITH a Taiwanese Intel partner last week, we learnt some solid facts about the chipset support the firm will provide for its Banias processor, the mobile CPU that is "built from the ground up", in the firm's own words.

We also learned about some of its power and battery characteristics that Intel is predicting for the future.

Some of these details are obviously pre-silicon estimates, the engineer told us.

The Banias will initially arrive at speeds of 1.70GHz, 1.60GHz, 1.50GHz, 1.40GHz and with a low voltage version at 1.10GHz and 900MHz ultra low voltage version.

Some of these details aren't decided yet, but the 1.70GHz and the 1.60GHz Banias CPUs will operate at 24.5 watts at 1.35 volts, with battery modes of 600MHz at .85 volts. Average processor power for all of the Banias family is less than one watt.

The 1.10GHz low voltage Banias will operate at 12W at 1.10 volts in performance mode, and the ULV 900MHz at seven watts at one volt.

Banias will also be offered in a microFCBGA 479 package with a thickness of 2.5 millimetres.

Chipsets supporting Banias processors will include the ODEM and the Montara GM chipsets, and we've some detailed specs for these.

Odem will use a 400MHz front side bus speed, support up to 1GHB of memory in SO-DIMM packaging, and support both DDR 200 and 266 memory types, with ECC parity. It will use AGP2X/4X, support six PCI masters, ATA 66/100, USB 2.0 with six ports, use Geyserville (Speedstep) III, and come with integrated LAN - either 10/100 Ethernet or HPNA. It will have six channels of audio and modem support.

The north hub packaging is 593 microFCBGA, the south hub package is 421 microBGA, while the north hub itself is Odem, and the south hub ICH4-M. The engineer told us that it's already sampling.

The Montara GM chipset, also for the Banias packaging, has similar specs to Odem but with some additional and interesting graphics features, including an integrated 32-bit 2D and 3D GFX core with something the marchitectural people are calling dynamic video memory technology.

It will supports up to UXGA at 1600 by 1200, and also has a DAC (digital analogue converter) for a regular CRT monitor - QXGA at 2048 by 1536 pixels. The display can be simultaneous. This chipset also appears to be sampling, according to the engineer. µ

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