According to the latest details in the industry, the leading chip maker, Intel has announced that netbooks running on the company's new Atom N280 processor will become available as early as Q2 or Q3 this year. Some of the early systems are expected to be introduced by ASUSTeK, Acer and Gigabyte, with ASUS having already developed a system based on the new netbook CPU, which the Taiwanese company showcased at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

The new processor is expected to be paired with a new chipset, consequently replacing the old 945GSE, which has been featured on almost every netbook released in 2008. Dubbed GN40, the new Intel netbook chipset is going to provide support for Intel's N280 processor, coming to provide users and system builders with a core frequency of 1.66GHz and an FSB of 667MHz. The new chipset and processor combo is expected to raise the performance bar on the upcoming netbooks, but the price tag is also going to be influenced.

 

Digitimes reports that the new netbook-ready Intel Atom N280 processor is going to be priced at US$60-65 in thousand-unit tray quantities, which is a bit over that of the Atom N270 processor and 945GSE chipset combo. Currently, the Atom N270 and 945GSE chipsets are priced at US$46, which could be lower, as the Santa Clara, California-based company will continue releasing new processor models.

 

Intel's Atom processor has been one of the company's most successful products in 2008, also enabling a faster growth of the netbook market segment, as most netbooks released last year have been featured with the small-sized and low-power Atom N270.

 

Last week, during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, ASUSTeK unveiled a series of new Eee PC models, at least one of which was featured with the yet-unreleased Atom N280.