Intel's next-generation
mobile platform, codenamed Napa, will deliver average power savings of 28 per
cent and run 68 per cent faster than its predecessors, the company claimed at a
meeting with reporters in San Francisco.
The chipmaker had not previously shared power or performance benchmarks for
its upcoming mobile platform scheduled to ship in January 2006.
The processor, chipset and wireless radio will use 3W of power, down from
4.2W for the previous generation. Together with the remaining components in a
notebook computer, Napa is expected to cut power consumption by about 10 per
cent.
"That translates into notebooks that have [battery life of] five hours and
beyond," said Keith Kressin, Intel's director of marketing for mobile platforms.
Intel boasted at the meeting that computer manufacturers will launch 230
different models in the six months following the product launch.
"Napa will be the fasted ramp in Intel history for mobile computing," said
Kressin. "No one is making any compromise. No one can say, on this previous
platform I got something that I didn't get on Napa. Everything is better."
Napa will be using Intel's Yonah dual-core processor, a mobile version of the
Intel 945 chipset with integrated graphics processing. The mobile platform also
promises improved wireless performance over the current generation.
Intel launched the Centrino mobile platform in 2003.
Aided by a huge marketing campaign that cost an estimated $300m, laptop
computers have quickly caught up with desktop shipments.
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