Upcoming Atoms unveiled

JOINING CRAIG BARRETT and Pat Gelsinger for a keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in the Renaissance Beijing Capital Hotel today, Anand Chandrasekher introduced two new processors for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and demonstrated the Moorestown platform.

Intel's senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group spoke at the cheap, knock off, IDF event geared only toward the Chinese market delivering a keynote entitled Mobility's Next Wave of Growth.

Chandrasekher showed off Intel's much-touted, next-generation Atom-based MID platform, Moorestown, with a demo to show it sucked 10 times less idle power compared with the current Atom offering.

The platform, which includes the Lincroft System on Chip, integrates a 45nm Atom processor core, graphics, video/memory controller and a companion input/output (I/O) hub codenamed Langwell.

The platform will also, of course, come complete with Chipzilla's Linux Moblin software, which the firm reckons will provide a full PC Internet experience and cellular voice capabilities.

Chandrasekher went on to announce two new Atom processors for too-big-for-your-pocket, too-small-to-be-much-use MIDs; the Z550 and Z515.

The Z550 purportedly extends the performance of the MID product line to 2GHz and adds some Hyperthreading to boot, in what Intel is claiming to be "the highest performance processor in the under-3-watt power envelope".

Meanwhile, the Z515 packs Intel Burst Performance Technology (BPT) allowing the processor to run at 1.2GHz when a performance boost is needed.

Going from little to large, Chandrasekher continued his keynote to talk mobile Nehalem for laptops and specifically the Calpella platform which should be made available by the second half of 2009. Chandrasekher said the processors would be more powerful than their predecessors and sport Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost tech.

Finally, because this IDF is all about "local innovation and Intel's industry leadership in the [China] region", and not at all about cutting costs or skimping in any way, Chandrasekher rolled out a plethora of new MID designs for the Chinese market. µ