14 DAY TRIAL // Given the fact that, without a doubt, tablets will become even more widespread and popular on the future, Intel's quite keen on pushing out a solution designed specifically for the low-power needs of this particular segment, with the “Oak Trail” single-core Atom Z670 being apparently the first product of this type to arrive on the market in March. And, as Fudzilla reports, we're not talking just about the CPU itself, but also some working designs of tablets running on this platform, with the actual products set to be unveiled later on this year.
According to the aforementioned source, the company most likely plans to unveil this new tablet-bound Atom during March 2011, which leads us to believe that Intel's gearing up for a CeBIT 2011 release (that's the only major hardware-related event set in the respective time frame).
While technical details regarding the forthcoming “Oak Trail” CPU are rather scarce, it seems that we're talking about a processing unit running at 1.5GHz and featuring a single core and two threads, as well as 512KB of cache.
Moreover, the device has just a 3W TDP, which makes it enough for a fan-less device, such as an Internet/multimedia tablet, whose actual processing requirements are not exactly very extensive.
Of course, the biggest problem Intel's “Oak Trail” Atom will have to face is the very serious competition coming from the other companies manufacturing tablet hardware, and there's plenty to choose from, whether we're talking about Samsung, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm or ARM, whose products have already been deployed and proved their worth over the past couple of months.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether Intel will really push out a tablet-bound Oak Trail Atom CPU, but this is a rumor we considered to be quite close to becoming a reality.