Intel has announced plans to release a series of new processors and chips as it continues to seek inroads into the market for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
The company’s fourth-generation Core-i processors are available already in quadcore format for desktops and notebooks. Energy-saving versions for ultrabooks and notebook/tablet hybrids are expected during the course of the year, announced the company.
The company had a win recently when Samsung announced its new Android tablet will run with an Intel processor. Now it clearly hopes to build upon that success.
The new central processing units, which utilise Haswell micro-architecture, will replace the third generation of Core-i processors, which use Ivy Bridge architecture.
Users can distinguish between the two based on the numbers in their names. A 3 stands for Ivy Bridge, while a 4 means Haswell.
Yet another processor — a quadcore Atom processor for tablets without fans, codenamed Bay Trail-T, is expected by Christmas. Just like Intel’s XMM 7160 chip, it will support multiband LTE.
There will also be a new Intel Atom chip for smartphones, codenamed Merrifield. However, those are not expected before 2014.
The market continues to be dominated by chips designed by British manufacturer ARM, which are considered to be especially energy-efficient.
Merrifield chips are expected to use 50 per cent less power than their predecessors, which should greatly stretch out battery lifespans, said Intel manager Tom Kilroy at Computex, a trade fair.
It will use the new so-called Silvermont micro-architecture. Just like with Haswell and Ivy Bridge, the Silvermont chip structure has an extremely tiny minimum feature size: 22 nanometres. Current Atom CPUs only go down as far as 32 nanometres.