14 DAY TRIAL // Intel announced today in a press conference the main points of interest in the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This conference has hardly brought any news, since the company's technology achievements have already been made public.
Intel's headline will be the announcement of a refurbished version of "Santa Rosa" platform, an update to the company's Centrino mobile platform. It includes a 45nm Intel Core 2 Duo CPU built with the new high-k metal gate transistors. Intel Mobile platform marketing manager, Brian Tucker, did not miss the opportunity of reminding the world that Intel is the first to take the 45-nanometer technology to the mobile sector. He also announced that the Santa Rosa refresh will include two new technologies: Intel HD Boost and Deep Power Down.
The Intel HD Boost is a set of micro-architectural improvements that will allegedly enhance the graphics performance. "This brings up new ways we can do 3D rendering, new ways that we can process all the calculations that go into making graphics so real that it becomes almost unbelievable, and new ways of processing all the video that's played on a notebook", Tucker said.
Deep Power Down is a new approach at energy saving, that will manage the cores' power when they are not throttled at full speed. "When the CPU is completely active, when both cores are fully active, it consumes a full amount of power", Tucker explained. "But as those cores become less active, we can begin to put them to sleep, and we can begin to put more and more elements of the processor and its surrounding components to sleep and reach an extremely low idle power when it's not being used." The slang name for the Deep Power Down feature is HUGI, which means "Hurry Up and Get Idle", continued the mobile platform marketing manager.
Intel have also taken advantage of the event to confirm that they will start shipping a chip platform for the ultra-mobile PC sector, as well as for mobile Internet devices (MPCs). "The full internet in your pocket is a fundamental belief at Intel", said Gary Willihnganz, director of marketing in Intel's ultra mobile group. "We're enabling our customers to bring great products to the marketplace that can deliver a full PC-like internet - rich, immersive, real."