Intel's latest Oak Trail Atom chips ship - first products soon

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 12 April 2011 14:51

Your IT - Home IT

The new generation of Intel's Atom platform that was codenamed Oak Trail is now shipping and will being appearing in devices next month.

According to Intel officials, the company's Atom Z670 CPU and SM35 chipset formerly known as Oak Trail are now shipping, and will appear in more than 35 tablet or hybrid designs from Evolve III, Fujitsu, Lenovo and other manufacturers. Operating systems including Windows, Android and MeeGo will be supported.

Features of the new chips include improved video playback (including 1080p decoding and HDMI support), fast internet browsing, and longer battery life. The integrated graphics and memory controller are incorporated on the main processor die.

"We are accelerating the Intel Atom product line to now move faster than Moore's law, bringing new products to market on three process technologies in the next three years," said Doug Davis, vice president and general manager of the Netbook and Tablet Group at Intel.

Intel plans to introduce its 'Cedar Trail' chips in the second half of 2011. They will offer Blu-ray 2.0 support, a dedicated media engine for full 1080p playback and additional digital display options including HDMI output and DisplayPort.

Those chips - currently being sampled by major manufacturers - will also support Intel Wireless Music, Intel Wireless Display, PC Synch and Fast Boot, while technology improvements will allow the design of systems without fans and with longer battery life.