Posted on Thursday, September 06 2007 @ 0:21 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Intel is planning to unveil a new dual-core notebook chip with a TDP of 25W,
X-bit Labs reports:
For years thermal design power of mobile microprocessors has been rising despite of thinner manufacturing technologies and other innovations which forced companies like Intel along with notebook makers to lower power consumption of other key notebook components. But Intel plans to reverse that trend next year, when it introduces a dual-core chip with 25W thermal envelope. But in addition the firm also plans 44W quad-core offering for those who demand performance at any cost, claim documents seen by X-bit labs.
Currently all up-to-date dual-core Core 2 Duo mobile processors from Intel Corp. have thermal design power (TDP) of 34W – 35W, which is significantly more compared to approximately 25W thermal envelope of Intel Pentium M chips that the company shipped two or three years. Even though Intel and notebook producers managed to decrease power consumption of other components so that not to sacrifice mobile PCs’ battery life in exchange for additional performance, relatively high TDP of standard products increases design complexity of cooling systems and either means larger notebooks or forces usage of low-voltage processors with reduced performance.
Along with the new mobile platform code-named Montevina, Intel will introduce code-named Penryn dual-core processors with 25W and 35W thermal design power, which will add performance to thin-and-light notebooks without increasing their complexity or pricing. The new chips will be made using 45nm process technology and will emerge in Q2 2008. The initial lineup will contain three chips with 3MB of L2 cache, 1066MHz processor system bus (PSB) with 2.13GHz, 2.40GHz and 2.53GHz clock-speeds.
