Nearly a week earlier than planned in late 2003, Intel Corporation officially introduced its affordable Celeron M microprocessors for value Intel Centrino notebook computers. Rolled out today, the Celeron M brand-name will evolve with the Pentium M processor throughout years ahead.

The Intel Celeron M processor is built on 0.13 micron process technology, just like the current generation of Pentium M “Banias” processors launched in March 2003. The standard-voltage Celeron M version is available at speeds of 1.30GHz and 1.20GHz, operates at 1.356V and has a thermal design power (TDP) of 24.5W. The ultra-low voltage (ULV) version of Intel Celeron M is available at 800MHz, operates at 1.004V and has a TDP of 7W.

All three versions of the Intel Celeron M processor feature a 400MHz processor system bus, 512KB of L2 cache, and support advanced mobile power management, including Deep Sleep states. The new Celeron M chips are compatible with the Intel’s i852PM, i852GM, i852GME, i852GMV, i855PM, i855GM and i855GME chipsets.

In commercial quantities, the Intel Celeron M processors at 1.30GHz and 1.20GHz are priced at $134 and $107, respectively; the ULV Intel Celeron M processor at 800MHz is priced at $161.

With the introduction of Intel Pentium M microprocessors, the Santa Clara, California-based chip company now offers a top-to-bottom family of Wi-Fi enabled Centrino options. This is very likely to become a catalyst for global popularization of WLAN as well as higher market shares for Intel Centrino products. According to an IDC report, notebooks based on Intel Centrino may account for up to 42% of the notebook market in 2003.

Intel Celeron M and Pentium M chips are also available separately from Centrino, forming a comprehensive family of central processing units with high performance and low power consumption.

In February 2004 Intel will unveil three 90nm mobile processors with 2MB cache and 400MHz PSB – at 1.80GHz, 1.70GHz and 1.60GHz. Additionally, there will be LV Pentium M chip 1.30GHz with 1MB cache, ULV Pentium M processor 1.0A with 2MB cache and ULV 1.0GHz Pentium M with 1MB L2 priced. In the second half of the year Intel will begin to ramp 90nm Celeron M chips.