New doings on the Atom front
Computing giant Intel has plans afoot to further shrink the form factor for their Atom processors, hopefully by mid-2010. The new chips, codenamed “Medfield”, will be shrunk to a 32-nanometer size for a new netbook platform that they have in mind.
Also for their netbook platform, Intel are planning “Pineview”, a new series of chips that is expected to arrive in the middle of next year. This will arrive in conjunction with a new graphics chipset made specifically for their Atom series netbooks.
This information is all courtesy of a leaked research note from UBS which details, amongst other things, proposed changes when the 32-nanometer chip becomes a reality such as a decision to place the processor cores, memory controller and I/O and the video all on the same bit of silicon. It also revealed that the new series of netbooks would be very likely to have several smartphone-esque features like WAN access via 3G and the like built into it; and they should also output high-definition video on arrival.
Brett Venter
