Intel’s wireless waves get stronger

SAN JOSE: Intel continued with its product/technology launches in the second day of the Intel Development Forum. The company announced availability of a new Intel 855GME chipset in the notebook space, offering new power-saving features.

Anand Chandrasekher, Vice President and Co-General Manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group announced that the chipset when used in combination with the DDR-333 memory will reduce power consumption by 30 percent, apart from delivering high performance graphics and better memory performance. Infact lowering power consumption and increasing batter life has been the key agenda for Intel.

Intel along with the with Mobile PC Extended Battery Life Working Group, a worldwide, industry-wide group of companies working together to extend the battery life of mobile PCs announced new recommendation to enable uniform and consistent power measurement of display subsystems across the mobile PC LCD industry.

Also announcing the next generation of mobile processor ‘Dothan’ based on the 90 nanometer process technology with 140 million transistors, Chandrasekher said that the processors will be available for shipping by the fourth quarter of this year. The day saw further announcement of the next generation mobile platform code-named Sonoma, based on the highly successful Centrino technology. The new platform will be available by the second half of 2004. Key feature of Sonoma includes integration of the 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN capabilities and will come along with a new sound card interface — Alviso. According to Intel, this will reduce power consumption by 50% for music and video applications.

Also in the pipeline for the handheld devices, Intel has the ‘Bulverde’ a XScale technology based processor. With the acquisition of DSP Communications and integrating their fifteen years experience in handheld chip design, Intel plans to come out with the Bulverde. This will be a key component of the Intel® Personal Internet Client Architecture (Intel® PCA), the company's development blueprint for designing wireless devices that combine voice communications and Internet access capabilities.

The Bulverde comes bundled with three key technologies viz. wireless MMX, Quick Capture and Wireless SpeedStep. Key features include the ability to capture video up to 4mb pixel and bring a similar resolution like the current video camera to the handhelds with the Qucik Capture. Wireless SpeedStep will help handheld users for better power management, while the Wireless MMX will help users with desktop multimedia capabilities like 2D and 3D gaming, streaming MPEG4 video for less power.

(CNS)