Intel's new mobile platform, codenamed Santa Rosa, is one of the topics Intel talked about on the second day of IDF, held in Beijing. Their long expected product is going to hit the market in May, and is part of a long plan Intel has for the mobile market.

The fourth generation of Centrino platform, Centrino Pro, also known as Santa Rosa, is comprised of an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the mobile Intel 965 Express chipset, an Intel Wireless-N network connection, Intel 82566MC Gigabit network connection and, as an optional element, Intel's Turbo Memory, previously known as Robson. The support for DirectX 10 will not be available on the first "version" of the mobile platform, because it is using a 965 Express-based chipset, which Intel deemed inappropriate for DX10 support. But Intel isn't going to keep its customers deprived of such a feature for long; it's just waiting for the right moment to get it out on the market.

David Perlmutter, Intel senior vice president and general manager, Mobility Group said: "The Internet is one of the driving forces in today's PC market and there is a desire for the Internet to be mobile. Intel is serving the market today with notebook PCs, and will expand its reach by adding WiMax to notebooks as well as small form factor MIDs in 2008."

At this moment, Intel hasn't released the Penryn line of processors, and instead of waiting for their mass availability, they are launching the Santa Rosa platform earlier, with the current chipsets and processors, while planning a refresh of the entire platform when Penryn-based processors will become available. Although other details haven't been released concerning this matter, support for the Penryn processor implies having an x3x chipset, and Intel has only mentioned the Penryn processor as being part of the refresh in the first half of 2008, so either they will make the current 965 Express-based chipset support the new processor, or the refresh will include more than just the CPU.

Following Santa Rosa, Intel will release the Montevina platform, also in the first half of 2008, which will run in parallel with the Santa Rosa platform, but will introduce a new mobile chipset based on the P35 chipset, codenamed Cantiga. It will also have upgrades to the wireless network connection, featuring WiMAX capabilities, a new Gigabit LAN connection, codenamed Boaz, and the second version of the Robson technology, called Robson 2.0.