Intel Corporation today formally rolled out a chip that is believed to be the last Mobile Celeron processor based on NetBurst architecture found in conventional desktop Pentium 4 and Celeron CPU.

The new processor is branded as Mobile Intel Celeron at 2.50GHz and is available in commercial quantities now at $149 price-point. Like the entire family of Mobile Celeron microprocessors with NetBurst architecture, the latest Mobile Celeron packs 256KB of L2 on-die cache memory and uses 400MHz Quad Pumped Bus. The chip is made using 0.13 micron technology and is designed to fit into 35W thermal envelope in order to address both full-size and thin-and-light form-factors.

So far Intel has not released any plans to offer Mobile Celeron processors based on Prescott design and NetBurst architecture for full-size and thin-and-light form-factor notebooks next year.

The company said unofficially that it would offer some flavours of Prescott CPUs at speeds of up to 3.73GHz and above in 2004 for desktop replacement segments and sell its new Celeron and Pentium M processors featuring specially tailored Banias and Dothan architectures for different mobile computers at variety of price-points. As a result, NetBurst-based chips will be available only for desktop replacement machines, while for mobile computers the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker will provide chips featuring specially customized architectures.

Intel supplies the vast majority of its Pentium M processors for Centrino notebooks that integrate Intel’s WLAN and chipset components, according to the company. In case the trend of selling Pentium M and derived Celeron processors continues next year, the number of Centrino notebooks will increase dramatically. If it happens, it will not only help Intel to popularize the Centrino brand, but may will also cause the number of Wi-Fi enabled notebooks and consequently the number of public Wi-Fi spots to skyrocket all around the world.