Intel has officially introduced a new low power Atom N435 processor for budget netbooks. Intel’s announcement  comes after Asus announced their budget netbook, theAsus Eee PC X101 $200 netbook and the Lenovo IdeaPad S100, both which use the chip. PC World reports that Acer will also offer a netbook with the new chip soon.

The Intel Atom N435 is a 1.33 GHz single core chip with 512K of cache and an estimated TDP of about 5W.. As expected, it’s basically the newest and slowest member of the Intel Atom Pine Trail family. The next step up the ladder are the 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 and N455 chips which were introduced last year and which have TDP’s of 5.5W and 6.5W respectively.

The key marketing point of the Atom N435 is price. It’s  a budget chip which makes dirt cheap netbooks possible, especially in combination with the open-source (and free) MeeGo Linux, an operating system optimized for Atom and other low power chips.

Intel is rolling out a new reference design called KeeleyLake for ultrathin netbooks.  The Keeley Lake design features a base so thin that there’s no room for USB ports or other connectors near the front of the laptop. Instead the ports are allon the back – presumably where the battery resides as well.

The Keelye Lake reference design also puts the  hinge connecting the screen to the laptop base is in the center rather than on the sides. This allows you to rotate the screen and fold it down over the keyboard so you can use the computer in tablet mode. Notebook Italia spotted a Keeley Lake prototype on display in Taiwan, but more details will likely emerge once the Computex trade show officially gets underway tomorrow.

Facing strong competition from ARM based processors, Intel is stepping up production of its next-generation Atom chips. While the company has dominated the netbook space with its line of low power Atom processors for the last few years,  Intel has been working to reduce power consumption of its chips while increasing performance, and now Intel CEO Paul Otellini says the company is redrawing its roadmap.

The current Intel processors are based on a 45nm process and we’ll see more efficient 32nm “Medfield” chips next year, 32nm “Silvermont” chips in 2013, and 14nm “Airmont” chips in 2014.

EE Times reports that Intel is focusing on efficiency.  For example a current processor with a power consumption, measured at a TDP of 40W can be cut to 15W with the upcoming 22nm chips which could lead to much longer battery life for next-generation notebooks and high-end slate computers.

Intel isn’t just cranking out Atom netbook processors – their latest-gen tablet focused Oak Trail just got announced yesterday.  They also let slip that Cloverview wil be next, after Oakltrail. The upcoming Oak Trail platform is based on a 45nm manufacturing process and has a TDP of about 3W. Cloverview will be based on a 32nm process, the same as with the upcoming Cedar Trail netbook based processor and Medfield chip for smartphones, coming towards the end of this year, and naturally have even lower power consumption than Oak trail.

The quote from yesterday’s presentation from Intel:

I would like to share some information about the coming products and what is next. Later this year we are going to disclose more information about our tablet processors called Medfield and Cloverview. Both will be built on Intel’s 32nm high-k metal gate technology, so you should expect even lower power, smaller foot-print and integration of new-features along with stunning performance.

Source: Tablet Review UK

A report from PC World reveals Microsoft is asking Intel to bring a 16-core Atom chip to market.But, the reason might surprise you – it’s not that MSFT wants Atom chips insanely powerful.  Rather, the idea is that Intel’s Atom platform could be even more energy efficient with 8 times more cores than are currently available.

Microsoft says the solution would be used in its data centers, providing enough power to run the company’s Windows Live web apps while using less energy than current chips.

Lenovo introduced IdeaPad S100 netbook, and the company promised it would be available with up to an Intel Atom N570 processor. At the time, Intel hadn’t yet made the new chipavailable, and we didn’t have any information about what makes the N570 different from existing Atom chips. Today, DigiTimes reports that the N570 chip should launch at the end of February.  According to the report, Lenovo, Asus, and Samsung will all introduce computers with the new chip in March.

Currently, the Intel web site only shows one chip in the N500 family — the dual core 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550. It’s likely that the N570 will be a similar chip with a faster clock speed and like Netbook News, we think it  will run at 1.66 GHz.

Intel is expected to launch its next-generation Cedar Trail and Oak Trail chips later this year. The N570 is likely just a minor spec bump for an existing product — much as the Atom N470 was a modest update to the N450 chip last year.

Intel has started mass production of the new Oak Trail chips. The chips combine Intel Atom Z670 processors and SM35 chipsets.

DigiTimes reports that the chips will be available to hardware makers at a cost of about $25 (USD) with MeeGo Linux. Systems that run Windows 7 will run higher due to licensing costs.

Tablets, netbooks, and other low power computers based on the Oak Trail platform should start arriving early next year.

The next-generation of Atom chips is slated to shrink to 32nm, but the company is also planning on building 22nm and even 15nm Atom processors down the road.  The current chips use 45nm technology, so the it’s quite an optimistic charge for Intel and will likely take a few years at least.  The reduction in process size should see chips which are more efficient – using less power and producing less heat as a result.  Ideal for small, cramped spaces in netbooks and other hand held devices.

The sheer number of different chips is interesting as well and indicates that Intel sees the market and scope for low power chips to be expanding. For instance, the chart shows 5 different chips in the Intel Atom N series space for the 15nm portion of the chart, but just one N series chip in the 45nm area.

via CNET

There’s a  new Intel Clasmate PC design. Designed for children, and featuring ruggedized cases, this latest model goes a bit further with improved water resistance and anti-microbial protection.  The design features a rubber cage around the hard drive to minimize damage from a fall, and rubber protection around the LCD as well. The new design also has “crush zones and additional air cushions” around sensitive areas. Intel says the new Classamte PC can stand up to spills of about “half the contents of a juice box.”

There aren’t a lot of additional specs available at the moment. Intel says the new design use the “latest” Intel Atom processor probably the Intel Atom N450, N455, N475, or N550.

Intel may be on top for the ‘traditional’ processors used in desktops, laptops, servers, but the huge, up and coming market in smartphones and tablets primarily used chips from a  company called ARM. Of course, Intel is not going to take that lying down, and they have plans to change that.

Intel is pushing forward in the low power space with designs that are intended for use in tablets, smartphones, and other low power devices. Intel CTO Justin Rattner told Reuters that the current Moorestown chips are on par with ARM-based chips when it comes to standby power, and that the next set of chips will rival ARM chips on active power. After that, Rattner says, the generation after that will pull ahead of ARM.

Those sound like fighting works.  We’re happy to see the competition!

via SlashGear