Inside Intel's Napa platform
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Intel's latest mobile platform, now officially christened Centrino Duo, introduces the Core Duo (Yonah) chip with dual CPU cores. This and other developments should deliver useful -- if not revolutionary -- increases in notebook performance and battery life.
The launch of Intel's new Napa platform brings with it Yonah, the company's first dual-core mobile processor. Now more properly named the Intel Core Duo, Yonah is an evolution of the Pentium M processor. As it's also expected to find its way into low-power blade servers and the like, there's no M or Mobile in the processor name: the next generation of this architecture, codenamed Merom, will move further into full-blown desktop (Conroe) and server (Woodcrest) configurations.
Core facts
Intel's nomenclature takes a bit of work to decode. The Napa platform is officially called Centrino Duo, which includes the Mobile Intel 945 Express chipset, the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Wi-Fi PCI Express MiniCard and the Intel Core Duo processor. A low-cost version of the platform built around a single-core Yonah -- why throw away a faulty chip if only half has failed? -- is simply called Centrino as before, although the processor chip itself is labelled the Intel Core Solo.
Intel's new Centrino Duo mobile platform (previously codenamed Napa) comprises the Core Duo (Yonah) processor, the PRO/Wireless 3945ABG wireless networking module and the 945 Express chipset.
Yonah's two cores are functionally identical mirror images of each other, which simplifies the routing of common signals between them. Apart from duality, Yonah's biggest -- or smallest -- change is its architectural feature size, shrunk to 65nm from its predecessor Dothan's 90nm. This smaller size keeps the processor line in track with the precepts of Moore's Law, and gives the designers more room to trade off performance against power consumption. Intel claims that Yonah has twice and Merom will have three times the integer performance per watt of Banias, the 130nm mobile chip that kicked off this line of designs.
The launch of Intel's new Napa platform brings with it Yonah, the company's first dual-core mobile processor. Now more properly named the Intel Core Duo, Yonah is an evolution of the Pentium M processor. As it's also expected to find its way into low-power blade servers and the like, there's no M or Mobile in the processor name: the next generation of this architecture, codenamed Merom, will move further into full-blown desktop (Conroe) and server (Woodcrest) configurations.
Core facts
Intel's nomenclature takes a bit of work to decode. The Napa platform is officially called Centrino Duo, which includes the Mobile Intel 945 Express chipset, the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Wi-Fi PCI Express MiniCard and the Intel Core Duo processor. A low-cost version of the platform built around a single-core Yonah -- why throw away a faulty chip if only half has failed? -- is simply called Centrino as before, although the processor chip itself is labelled the Intel Core Solo.
Intel's new Centrino Duo mobile platform (previously codenamed Napa) comprises the Core Duo (Yonah) processor, the PRO/Wireless 3945ABG wireless networking module and the 945 Express chipset.
Yonah's two cores are functionally identical mirror images of each other, which simplifies the routing of common signals between them. Apart from duality, Yonah's biggest -- or smallest -- change is its architectural feature size, shrunk to 65nm from its predecessor Dothan's 90nm. This smaller size keeps the processor line in track with the precepts of Moore's Law, and gives the designers more room to trade off performance against power consumption. Intel claims that Yonah has twice and Merom will have three times the integer performance per watt of Banias, the 130nm mobile chip that kicked off this line of designs.