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Chipzilla readies 1GHz Mobile PIII

My laptop has a Toilet-in...

Intel Roadmap Update Intel will launch its first 1GHz mobile processor next March, less than a month after releasing a 700MHz "low voltage" PIII, the follow-up to this week's "ultra-low voltage" 500MHz PIII.

March will also see a 750MHz Mobile Celeron, followed by an 800MHz part in May, and 850MHz and 900MHz chips in Q3 and beyond.

Chipzilla's mobile plans are based on its view of a notebook market splitting into three major strands: full-size machines, the slimline 'thin and light' variety and compact sub-notebooks. To these, Intel adds a fourth market, Mini Notebooks, but it's hard to see how this differs from the others.

The 500MHz PIII and Celeron parts launched this week are aimed at the sub-notebook market, and are primarily about beating the hell out Transmeta's Crusoe CPU. They may offer comparable power savings, but they lose out on clock speed, which is where the 700MHz "low voltage" PIII, due to be launched on 27 February, comes in.

In the sub-notebook space, Intel expects to upgrade the "ultra-low voltage" parts with 600MHz versions during Q3. The 600MHz PIII will be quickly retired, replaced in September by a 700MHz Tualatin part with 512KB on-die L2 cache. That will be pushed above 700MHz early next year, at the same time as the 600MHz Celeron is replaced with a faster Tualatin containing 256KB of L2. Both Toilet-ins will be fabbed at .13 micron and will slot straight into the current 440MX chipset with a 100MHz frontside bus.

The Mini Notebook market will also be served by the 440MX, until September when the 133MHz 830M chipset comes into play and with it an 800MHz, 512KB L2 Tualatin, though this part can work with both 440MX and the 830M, formerly known as Almador. Q1 2002 will see the arrival of 800MHz-plus Toilet-ins to finally replace the "low voltage" Coppermine-based Mobile PIII. That chip will see its final upgrade in Q3, when it's upped to 750MHz. Early next year, Intel will also retire the Coppermine-based Celeron with a 256KB L2 Toilet-in.

Moving up market, the full-size notebook sector follows the same basic pattern. Q2 will see the arrival of 900MHz and 1GHz Mobile PIIIs, which will be shoved down-market in Q3 by 1.06GHz and 1.13GHz Toilet-ins (512KB L2). Tualatin will be taken to 1.2GHz in Q4, but this looks unlikely to survive the introduction in February 2002 of 1.5GHz and 1.6GHz Mobile Northwood CPUs (512KB L2).

The Toilet-ins will be supported by the 830M chipset, which will replace (in this sector) the recently launched 815EM. Northwood's introduction will also see the launch of a mobile version of the Brookdale chipset.

Coppermine and Coppermine-T-based parts at .18 micron will dominate the 128K L2 Celeron range as it rise from 700MHz now to 750MHz (March), 800MHz (May), 850MHz (Q3), 866MHz and 900MHz (Q4), and 933MHz (Q1 2002).

What Intel calls the Thin and Light sector - which it reckons will ultimately account for 60 per cent of the notebook market - will likewise be dominated by Coppermine and Coppermine-T-based parts at the Celeron end.

Further up, the sector will follow the Full Size category closely. The one difference is that Northwood will not be aimed at this arena - Toilet-ins running at 1.26GHz and 1.2GHz will fill out the top-end instead. ®

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