Intel's Haswell chip in focus: Heads up Nvidia

From CNET News.com: A technical document posted recently on an Intel software blog drops some hints about its "Haswell" chip due in 2013. The upshot, watch your back Nvidia.

Here's what we already know about Haswell, per a conversation I had last month with Intel marketing chief Tom Kilroy: The mobile version of Haswell will be Intel's first system-on-a-chip designed for the mainstream laptop market, according to Kilroy.

A system-on-a-chip, or SoC, is the de rigueur design for smartphones and tablets. All of the system's core processing silicon--typically comprised of two or more separate chips in a PC--is crammed onto one chip to accommodate the space constraints inside those devices. Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor would be a good example of a popular SoC today used in smartphones and tablets: Snapdragon is used in Windows Phone 7 devices and HP's TouchPad tablet, respectively. Of course, Apple's A5 chip, used in the iPad, would also fall into that category.

Fast forward to 2013. By then, a significant chunk of the mainstream laptop market will likely consist of "Ultrabooks," according to Intel. These are ultraslim, ultralight laptops, as well as hybrid designs. The best examples today of an Ultrabook are the upcoming Asus UX21 and Apple's MacBook Air.

The difference between now and 2013 is that by then Haswell-based Ultrabooks will be cheap, according to Intel's Kilroy, who cited a likely price of $599. And, if Intel has its druthers, those Ultrabooks will not require any extra graphics silicon from companies like Nvidia: Intel's built-in graphics will do just fine, thank you.

View: Article @ Source Site