Aggressive Moves

Intel has been a pioneer in launching technologies that are way ahead of
times. While its rival AMD, despite its much smaller size, has been challenging
Intel with it processors that are gaining steady market acceptance. After AMD's
Turion 64x2 and Intel's Core 2 Duo, which happened last year, there has not been
any major technology update or a new product. Finally, Intel has broken the
brief silence and created the adrenaline rush this time with its brand new Core
2 Duo update processor.

This next generation Intel's Centrino processor technology is code named
Santa Rosa. It comprises of Core 2 Duo, a mobile Intel 965 express chipset and
wireless N standard among numerous value additions that hastens the mobile
computing experience by many times, claims Intel. One of the key innovations in
Santa Rosa is the optional 'turbo memory'. By using this technology, users would
be able to access frequently used software applications twice as fast and reduce
the amount of time it takes to turn on or boot-up a laptop by as much as 20%.
This, in turn, saves power consumption and increase battery life.

New Chip on the Block

Taking a brief historical perspective over the last two years, the processor
landscape has undergone a sea change. Much of Intel's aggression by rolling out
new processor technologies also owes its origin to the emergence of competition
mainly by AMD, which took the lead in launching the Turion 64-bit processor. At
the time when analysts were pondering about Intel's next move and AMD's
prospects in taking on the giant, Intel unveiled its 'Core' architecture in 2005
end, and launched the industry's first dual core processor-a processor with two
cores. Probably that was a turning point in mobile computing as Intel's Core Duo
chips brought in new degree of power and performance on to the notebooks. It's a
logical evolution, like Centrino, which recycled Pentiums in 2003 and in a
similar fashion Core Duo chips took mobile computing to whole new levels.

Both Intel and AMDs new processors are aimed at bringing notebooks that are
able to churn out more computing power and the punch line they adopted is 'more
performance per watt'. These processors are designed for energy efficiency to
enable better battery life. As a result, if we take for instance, Intel's ultra
low voltage (ULV) processors on the Core family, it would be able to give a
battery back up of about eight hours. If we take a closer look at the newly
launched Santa Rosa, it has several added features as compared to the existing
Core 2 Duo chip. The biggest refinement as per Intel is the 800 MHz front side
bus (FSB) as compared to the 667 MHz in previous ones. This new FSB is expected
to speed up the overall system performance.

Intel also says that users will experience improved performance when running
multiple applications simultaneously such as downloading a video clip while
doing a virus scan. Additional power management features will continue to enable
users to have bigger battery life. Ramamurthy Sivakumar, MD, Intel South Asia
says, "When we introduced Intel Centrino four years ago, we changed the
computing landscape with our mobile innovations. Now with Santa Rosa, we have
improved virtually all aspects of Intel-based notebooks, the most popular and
fastest growing computing market segment in the world."

These processors are designed for energy efficiency to enable better battery life. It would be able to give a battery back up of about eight hours

Market
Focus

The Santa Rosa platform is broken into two product lines. The Centrino Duo
will go for consumer notebooks while business class notebook PCs will sport
Centrino Pro branding. However, both the platforms will be based on the Core 2
Duo processor. Centrino Pro will be a brand specifically for the business user
and the fundamental difference comes in for the first time with Intel extending
its vPro technology to the notebook environment. Centrino Pro processor
technology will adopt the innovative and popular features found in desktop
business PCs today with vPro processor technology. IT departments will be able
to reliably manage both desktops and notebooks and deal with what plagues them
most-security threats, cost of ownership, resource allocation, and asset
management. All this can be done wirelessly as IT managers will get the same
active management technology till now available only on vPro desktop
environments.

According to Reuben Tan, research manager, Personal Systems, IDC Asia
Pacific, "Intel's Centrino Pro processor technology now allows the inherent
benefits of Intel vPro processor technology to be implemented in a mobile
solution. Built-in features like remote management could potentially reduce
infrastructure downtime and cost, in a form factor traditionally harder to keep
tabs on due to the portable nature of notebooks."

India's Contribution

If we look at some of the processor launches made by Intel in the recent past, a
significant aspect relates to Intel India's contribution in making the
processors market ready. In the case of Santa Rosa also, the Intel India
Development Centre (IIDC) in Bangalore has played a significant role. IIDC's
Mobile Platforms Group worked on platform development areas such as Intel turbo
memory software validation, customer reference board design, basic input output
system (BIOS) development and support, platform electrical, thermal and battery
life analysis. Meanwhile the Chipset Group worked on key elements of the chipset
software: drivers for Microsoft Windows Vista and graphics and display drivers.
IIDC also provided critical hardware and software applications engineering
support to Intel OEMs and ODMs in Asia Pacific and Japan to ensure readiness to
launch their platforms along with Intel.

The Outlook

With Santa Rosa, Intel pitches to its buyers three key things-faster
processors and chipsets, high-end video and graphics and stronger and faster
wireless signals on a mobile environment. Looking at the market adoption,
according to Intel, more than 230 Intel Centrino Duo and Intel Centrino Pro
processor technology-based designs from PC manufacturers, resellers and
integrators around the world are expected to take advantage of these and other
features this year. Moreover, notebooks will come in various shapes and sizes,
with designs ranging from fully loaded, 17-inch wide-screen models ideal for
entertainment to tiny, energy-saving notebook PCs that weigh less than three
pounds.

Vendors like Samsung and Asus had already rolled out Santa Rosa based
notebooks. With no major update from AMD after Turion 64x2, Intel's Santa Rosa
is a significant launch in the mobile computing space. But things will obviously
turn hot when AMD launches its Barcelona Quad Core mobile chips by Q3 2007, and
by that time Intel proposes to launch another new processor called Penryn on 45
nm technologies. In all, the battle for supremacy and power in processor space
will lead to users getting more powerful technologies.

Shrikanth G

shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in