Intel unveils first dual-core notebook

Intel has been showing off its first dual-core notebook design, codenamed Napa, at the chip firm's Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The company said the design contains a newly developed chipset that is a third smaller than current Centrino notebooks, with better thermal control.

The technology has been designed to run the dual-core 65 nanometre Pentium, codenamed Yonah, while maintaining existing levels of battery life. The architecture is scheduled to be released in 2006.

"There has been an explosive growth in laptop sales in the past year," said Sean Maloney, general manager of Intel's mobility group.

"Europe is the largest notebook market and there is strong growth in the US and Asia. But the throttle that limits the growth of mobility is bandwidth."

Maloney explained that less than three per cent of the world's population currently has access to broadband connections, and that this figure would not grow quickly until wireless broadband, known as WiMax or 802.16, is available.

Intel has been pushing WiMax adoption hard for the past year and is expected to release the first WiMax laptops in 2006 or 2007.

"What we are trying to do with WiMax is get a global standard that covers cities and countries so that you never have to fumble for a wire again," explained Maloney.

"We are looking to use fat wireless pipes. Not the small pipes that 2.5G has, but fatter pipes that governments can allocate. The objective is to take connectivity one stage further around the principle that coverage is king."

Maloney also demonstrated Intel's newly developed mobile phone platform, codenamed Hermon. This uses integrated graphics processing to make phones more effective at showing digital content and handling larger images and video.

He confirmed that Intel will go into volume production of its 3G handset platform later this year. "We have had the silicon for a couple of months now and the chipsets are set to go," he said.

According to Maloney, Intel is also working on technology that will make it easier to swap files between notebooks and mobile phones. Power management technology is also under development.