Intel is looking ahead to the next generation of mobile
chips to follow Centrino and Manitoba.
Sonoma will be released in the second half of 2004 with a
dual-band wireless chip and a chipset, codenamed Alviso. The
platform will use a future Pentium M processor, but Intel declined
to specify if it would be Dothan, the company's 90-nanometer
version of the Pentium M, or a chip beyond that release.
Dothan will be released later this year with a 2Mbyte cache.
The Sonoma platform will include new audio technology, known as
Azalia, which aims to improve the sound quality of music, films,
and games on notebooks,.
Notebook designers who do not want to wait for Sonoma can start
shipping systems with Intel's 855GME chipset, which features Intel
Display Power Saving Technology, which allows the system to dim the
screen's backlight while maintaining the image brightness and
quality on the screen.
From next year, mobile-phone manufacturers will be able to use
Bulverde, Intel's codename for the next generation of XScale
technology. The chips will incorporate three new technologies that
improve graphics performance and reduce battery life, said Ron
Smith, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's
wireless communications and computing group.
Intel will take the MMX (multimedia extensions) technology which
improved graphics performance in its Pentium 4 processors and bring
that to Bulverde processors.
The new processors will incorporate Wireless SpeedStep, a mobile
technology which varies the power consumed by a chip depending on
the requirements of a particular task. This is a common technique
used by notebook processors, and will help extend battery life
in mobile phones and other handhelds.
For mobile phones with cameras, Intel developed Quick Capture
technology for upcoming processors, which will allow phones to take
up to four-megapixel images and capture moving video.
Tom Krazit writes for IDG News Service