Intel and LG team up on Moorestown MID

INTEL HAS announced its first design win for a mobile Internet Device (MID) from LG. The device will be based on Chipzilla's next generation Atom processor, the Moorestown platform, and come with Linux-based Moblin v2.0 software.

The announcement, coming on the opening day of the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, certainly has Intel excited, namely because the device will be the first Moorestown based design to market.

It isn't the first time Chipzilla has teamed up with LG. The pair have been building notebooks and netbooks together for a while now, but this latest partnership will be a significant push towards Intel's ambitions in the MID space. As netbooks get smaller and mobiles get bigger and more interactive, Intel is banking on the fact MIDs, a sort of amalgamation of smartphone with pc functionality, will really take off in the next year or so.

Moorestown consists of a System on Chip ("Lincroft") integrating a 45nm Atom processor core, graphics, video and memory controller all in one. The platform also includes an input/output (I/O) hub, "Langwell," which Chipzilla says includes a range of I/O blocks and support for wireless.

Intel is boasting its "Moorestown"-based MIDs should reduce idle power consumption by a factor of 10 or more compared with contemporary Atom-based MIDs and that coupled with Intel's Moblin v2.0 Linux operating system, users should get a pretty good approximation of a PC-like Internet experience on a device which also supports mobile phone capabilities.

Anand Chandrasekher, Intel's senior Veep and general manager of the firm's Ultra Mobility Group noted Intel's latest offerings would "deliver the best Internet experience while dramatically reducing power -contributing to the development of ultra sleek devices that offer superb battery life."

LG is not giving out too much information at the time being, for competitive reasons, but the firm is known to also be collaborating with Ericsson to bring 3G network capability to the Intel inside MID. Ericsson's Mats Norin, vice president and head of Ericsson Mobile Broadband Modules confirmed "We are working with LG and Intel to deliver industry-leading 3G capabilities on the Moorestown MID". He added Ericsson would be "instrumental" in taking this particular MID to the global market.

The "Moorestown" platform is expected to come to market by 2010. µ