Expect a detailed update on the Cherry Trail platform to show up sometime around Computex

Mar 1, 2014 08:53 GMT  ·  By

If you had enough of hearing about tablets running on Bay Trail processors, then you’ll be interested to know that Intel is hopeful that slates bundling the next Atom chip, dubbed Cherry Trail, will be implemented in devices by year’s end.

Cherry Trail is expected to power tablets and lower-end PCs, succeeding the Bay Trail chip platform, which was released last year and has been largely used in tablets.

We’re going to be finding out more details about Cherry Trail in the second part of the year, probably around the Computex trade show, PcAdvisor notes.

The Bay Trail chip is made using a 22nm process, but Cherry Trail is produced using an improved 14nm process, which means we’re going to see an improved performance and better efficiency in terms of battery life, which will amount to longer hours of usage.

Basically, the 14nm manufacturing process allows the chip maker to produce much denser chips that, in turn, are more power-efficient, so if you were amazed by the long life in Bay Trail devices, wait until you see Cherry Trail.

It’s hypothesized that, by this year's holiday season, Intel might end up offering high-end tablets bundling the Cherry Trail platform while pushing Bay Trail devices towards the low-end segment, meaning prices for such tablets are expected to go down significantly by year’s end.

So far, we have seen the Bay Trail chip architecture implemented in Windows 8.1 tablets such as the Dell Venue and ASUS Transformer Book T100.

At MWC, Intel announced a new LTE modem, the XMM 7260, which will most likely go into Bay Trail tablets later this year (Dell’s roadmap has already showed us we’re going to be seeing an LTE version of the Dell Venue 11 Pro).

It’s also interesting to note that the Cherry Trail refresh is coming at a much faster rate than usual, due to pressure from other chip manufacturers.

As the recent trend continues to gain traction in the mobile industry, Intel has made its mobile chip business a priority. Hence the manufacturer's trying its best to advance as fast as possible, in order to catch up with ARM, which dominates the mobile market at the moment.

Intel will have to take up Qualcomm, whose chips are based on ARM architecture and are implemented in a lot of smartphone and tablet offerings we see today.

However, Qualcomm’s designs are based on the 28nm process, and Cherry Trail might just be what Intel needs to leap ahead, due to the power efficiency and performance advantages it provides.