Intel preps ‘Centrino 2' for mid-year launch

‘Centrino 2' (Code Name: ‘Montevina')

Your next notebook will be nothing like any notebook that's gone before. That's the promise Intel will make when it launches the fifth generation of its Centrino mobile platform around the middle of this year - an event we're hearing will take place during Computex Taipei 2008, which runs from June 3-7.

In fact, the mobile technology set will be so different from its predecessors that it's tipped to be branded as Centrino 2. That's a move we welcome, because the Centrino moniker has been applied to every full revision and mid-life refresh since the platform made its debut in 2003, apart from the introduction of the Centrino Duo tag in 2006 which accompanied the introduction of the Core 2 Duo ‘Merom' processor.

(Then again, if you're getting a little confused by all those Duos and 2s you probably won't welcome the rumour that the all-new 45nm-based Nehalem architecture due by year's end will be christened Core 3. But we digress...)

For now it's simply called ‘Montevina', that codename following Intel's preference to give mobile platforms a cypher drawn from Californian wine-growing regions (previous generations of Centrino were Carmel, Sonoma, Napa and Santa Rosa).

All change: Montevina's mighty advancement of the Centrino platform, especially in the CPU and wireless areas, results in the 'Centrino 2' brandAt the heart of Montevina lies the 45nm Penryn dual core processor, but this will be the second series of Penryn processors sporting a 1,066MHz front side bus (compared to the current 800MHz FSB models) and clocked from an entry-level 2.26GHz to at least 3.06GHz in the Extreme edition.

Cache sizes span from 3MB to a meaty 12MB for the top-end Extreme QX9300 portable powerhouse. The 45nm design keeps thermals well down, however, starting at 25 watts compared to 34 watts for the standard 65nm Merom processors.

Based on the smaller CPU size and lower thermals, Intel expects that Montevina motherboards could halve the footprint of a current Santa Rosa board and trim 25% off its width. The upshot will be a new wave of notebooks, ranging from smaller slimmer models than the current crop to standard-sized laptops with larger batteries that can run all day without a recharge.

Montevina will introduce support for the more power-efficient DDR3-800 memory modules and also ‘Robson 2', which is the second generation of Intel's flash-buffered Turbo Memory hard drive technology. (Unlike hybrid hard drives which embed memory into the drive unit itself, Intel's preference is to mount NAND onto the motherboard). Montevina-class laptops are also expected to sport a new video connector for the DisplayPort standard.

Pick a card, any card: laptop makers can choose from a combo card with both Wi-Fi and WiMAX, or offer a stand-alone WiMAX card as an option (or just ignore it altogether)But the biggest leap forward is the much-delayed arrival of integrated WiMAX, which manufacturers can fit to their notebooks using an add-on WiMAX card along side the standard 802.11b/g/n WiFi module or a combo card with both Wi-Fi and WiMAX.

Optional extra: this tiny 3G module from Option will deliver 7.2Mbps HSDPA to Montevina-class notebooks3G HSDPA will also on be the menu: while Intel dropped plans for an integrated 3G HSDPA module, to be jointly developed with Nokia, a deal with the Belgium-based wireless experts Option will make available a postage-stamp sized 3G radio capable of hitting 7.2Mbps downlink and 5.7Mpbs uplink, depending on the capability of the mobile network. Gigabit Ethernet will be available through the on-board ‘Boaz' LAN controller.

Graphics also gets a serious boost from the ‘Cantiga' Mobile 45 Express GPU chipset which is based on Intel's X4500 graphics technology, with native support for Blu-ray (and HD-DVD, for those six people who bought Toshiba's HD-DVD laptops). Internally clocked at 475MHz, Cantiga matches the CPU's 1,066MHz FSB and contains ten unified shaders, two more than the current Santa Rosa platform.

Intel will also release Penryn mobile processors in a 22mm package rather than the standard 35mm package, starting with 1.2GHz and 1.4GHz clock speeds, 3MB of L2 cache and an 800MHz FSB, with a power ceiling of just 10 watts. (Meatier builds will zoom from 1.6GHz to 2.4GHz, with 6MB of cache, 1,066MHZ FSB and a 17-25 watts overhead).

These pint-sized Penryn chips will be married to similarly shrunken versions of the Cantiga graphics chipset and southbridge I/O module to produce a Montevina SFF (small form factor) trio almost 60% smaller than the norm. This is the Montevina version of the Merom SFF package used in the MacBook Air and the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, with a target delivery date of the third quarter.