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Intel Develops Timna-2

by Anna Filatova
01/19/2001 | 11:30 AM

Intel can’t give up the idea of integrated processors, according to a post over at ZDNet. No wonder, actually. After the company canceled Timna processor because of some problems with the integrated Rambus controller, the entire market segment appeared out of Intel’s sphere of influence. Now this segment is little by little occupied by Transmeta with its Crusoe processor and a bit later VIA with its Matthew will join as well. These processors can be called "CPUs for ultra light notebooks". And according to the recent forecasts, by 2002, up to 60% of all notebooks will become "ultra light". That’s why Intel decided to create a new CPU by that time, which could be used in ultra light and ultra thin mobile PCs. Of course, the key features of this processor are evident: low power consumption and low heat dissipation. In general, the features of the new Intel processor look as follows:

Pentium III architecture with more ALU units;
0.13 micron manufacturing technology;
Something close to SpeedStep technology, which will reduce the working frequency and processor Vcore in case the notebook is powered by battery;
512KB L2 cache;
SSE-2 support;
Integrated DDR SDRAM controller.

This chip will never replace the mobile Celeron or Pentium 4 family and will represent a totally new and independent family. Time will show how brilliant the idea was, however, we have to admit that the specs mentioned look much more impressive than by competing products. Nevertheless, it is mostly the power consumption rate that matters in this market in the first place. But unfortunately, there is no info about it available yet.

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