Intel web tablet SoC to cut power consumption by 20x

Come 2010, UMPCs will consume only a twentieth of the power last year's models did and a fifth of the company's next-generation UMPC platform, Intel forecast last night.

The chip maker only announced the latest version and the next incarnation of its Ultra Mobile Platform (UMP) in April, but at its spring financial conference, it announced the next-but-one generation of UMP.

Last month, Intel announced its 'Stealy' processor, based on the old 'Dothan' Pentium M. Next year it will bring 'Silverthorne' to market, a chip designed from the ground up for UMPCs and smaller, handheld Internet access devices. Silverthorne and the 'Poulsbo' chipset make up 'Menlow', the next verison of UMP.

And now we have 'Moorestown', Menlow's successor, due in the 2009-2010 timeframe, Intel executives revealed. Mooresown will combine the processor and other system components into a single chip.

Menlow is set to consume a quarter of the power last year's Celeron M-based UMPCs, such as Samsung's Q1, did. Intel claimed Moorestown will deliver a 20x reduction in power consumption compared to the likes of the Q1 - or a fifth of what Menlow will consume.

But it will still be able to run a full desktop operating system like Microsoft's Windows Vista, the chip maker claimed.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini forecast the market for UMPCs and what the company calls "mobile internet devices" - essentially small web viewing tablets - will be worth $10bn in chip sales to Intel in 2011. These devices, along with notebooks, represent the company's biggest opportunity for growth, he said. Web-enabled consumer electronics kit could add a further $10bn in chip sales at the end of the decade.