That the next generation of Intel's Centrino laptop platform, 'Santa Rosa', will introduce new, tweaked versions of the chip maker's current 'Merom' Core 2 Duo mobile chip line-up is well known. They'll be pin-incompatible with current Meroms. But it's now looking like the updated CPUs will ship in May.

Certainly that's what Taiwanese sources, cited by local newssite DigiTimes, are claiming the new-style Socket P Core 2 Duos - the T7770, T7500, T7300 and T7100 - will ship in May, the timeframe presumably selected for the Santa Rosa roll out. Intel's publicly pronounced schedule for Santa Rosa calls simply for a Q2 launch.

Part of Santa Rosa, the 'Kedron' 802.11n-compatible Wi-Fi module - now officially called the Wireless Wi-Fi Link 4965AGN - has already begun shipping to notebook manufacturers and OEMs.

The moles claim the Socket P Meroms will be priced at $209-530. Interestingly, the list no longer includes the T7000, a part that was included with early Socket P line-up listings, replaced by the T7100. A mis-print or a change of mind on Intel's part?

Santa Rosa is expected to be made available in two forms: Centrino Duo and Centrino Pro, the latter a business-oriented version of the platform that incorporates features found in Intel's vPro business desktop platform.

Santa Rosa's sucessor is codenamed 'Montevina', which will be based around the 45nm incarnation of Merom, based on the 'Penryn' dual-core die.