Intel Corporation today announced three new processors for personal digital assistants (PDAs). The new processors incorporate the latest microprocessor packaging and stacking techniques, and deliver higher performance and longer battery life in less space than previous versions.

Today's announcement includes two additions to the smaller, Intel PXA26x family, including the Intel PXA263 processor, Intel's first stacked processor for PDAs and the Intel PXA260 processor, a pin-to-pin compatible product that makes upgrading a PDA design easy and cost-effective for OEMs. The third product; the Intel PXA255 processor, is a replacement to the popular Intel PXA250 processor that extends the overall system performance and battery-life of PDAs.

The Intel PXA260 processor (available in 200 MHz, 300 MHz, 400 MHz versions) is a standalone device that is nearly 53% smaller (13mm by 13mm by 1.4mm) than prior standalone processors (17mm by 17mm by 1.75mm). It is pin-to-pin compatible with the Intel PXA26x processor family, enabling the designer to build a single board that can easily stack flash memory and computing products without changing the design. This saves manufacturers significant time and cost associated with designing a family of PDAs ranging from thin and light to high-end, full-featured devices.

The Intel PXA263 processor (available in 200 MHz, 300 MHz, 400 MHz versions) stacks 32MB of 32-bit Intel StrataFlash memory with an Intel XScale technology based processor for up to 72% space savings over stand-alone products.

The Intel PXA255 processor extends the overall balance of system performance and power consumption of its predecessor, the Intel PXA250 processor. Intel has doubled the internal system bus speed to improve application performance. In addition, Intel has lowered the voltage of the technology to 1.3v at 400MHz through a variety of manufacturing techniques, resulting in more than 30% lower power consumption in run mode and more than 60% lower in idle mode. Acer, Casio, Dell, Intermec, Symbol and Toshiba are among the customers using the new processors.

The Intel PXA263 and Intel PXA260 processors are sampling today with production volumes expected in the second quarter of 2003. Products using the new processors will be available later this year. The Intel PXA263 processor (200MHz) has a suggested list price of $42.35 in 10 000 unit quantities, and the Intel PXA260 processor (200MHz) is being sold at a list price of $ 22.85 in 10 000 unit quantities.