Intel Corp. plans to develop a separate central processing unit (CPU), or even a CPU family, for notebooks that will be marketed under One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. This is hardly a surprising announcement as Intel is unlikely to allow selling its latest technologies at a low price, but is more than likely to offer a customized solution that does not feature the latest tech, but will still satisfy OLPC users.

“OLPC is a new category that will allow many, many people in many places to have access to the Internet. It’s a category for itself. It will grow, it will not be a cannibalization of an existing [product] category,” said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of the mobile platforms group at Intel, in an interview with InfoWorld.

Intel joined the OLPC program in July, 2007, after it masterminded its Intel Classmate PC as well as Asustek Eee PC, both aimed at developing countries. It was just a matter of time when Intel announces a plan to develop chips for laptops that will be marketed by the non-profit OLPC organization.

At this point Intel has code-named Tolapai and Silvethorn highly-integrated chips for embedded and low-cost systems as well as Celeron processors for affordable personal computers. Nevertheless, considering the cost, power and form-factor requirements of laptops that will sell for $100 - $200, Intel plans to develop a separate solution specifically for OLPC. The new chip will be showcased at Intel Developer Conference in April next year.

Current OLPC XO laptop features AMD Geode LX-700 processor with 433MHz clock-speed and built-in graphics controller, 256MB of PC-2100 (DDR 266MHz) memory, 1GB NAND flash that substitutes hard disk drive, 7.5” screen with 1200x900 resolution, wireless and wired network adapters as well as integrated webcam, microphone, speakers and so on.