With Pine Trail's Imminent Arrival, Intel Turns to Nettops

From PC World: Hoping to build on the success of netbooks like Acer's AspireOne, Intel wants to prove that its Pine Trail chip package can do for desktops what the first Atom processors did for laptops.

Pine Trail is a package of chips built around Pineview, an upcoming version of the Atom processor that includes an integrated memory controller and graphics chip. By combining the memory controller and graphics with the processor, Intel was able to reduce the current Atom chip package from three chips to two -- Pineview and the Tiger Point chipset. This means the chips take up less space and consume less power than the current generation.

Intel hopes the new chips will generate more demand for Atom-based desktops, which it calls nettops.

"We're easily going to ship over 5 million nettop-based units this year, and we'll do far better than that next year," said Noury Al-Khaledy, general manager of netbooks and nettops at Intel, in an interview.

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