Intel Corp.'s Sean Maloney, Executive Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Sales and Marketing Group, said his company's relentless commitment to innovation will help drive tremendous future growth throughout the computing and communications industries, particularly in mobile and wireless.
During the opening keynote speech at Computex, Maloney unveiled a new family of ultra-low voltage mobile processors. The mobile processors will enable lightweight, attractive and ultra-thin Intel-based laptops less than 1in thick at a variety of new and more affordable price points.
Maloney also conducted the first public demonstration of "Pine Trail," the next-generation Intel Atom processor-based platform for netbooks and nettops. These affordable devices—combined with broad-reaching communications networks such as WiMAX—can help bridge the digital divide. Intel is also planning new desktop PC chipsets that will make high definition (HD) available to mainstream desktop systems by the end of the year.
During his speech, Maloney congratulated Taiwan on shipping more than 1 billion Intel processor-based motherboards. He also pointed out how Taiwan's technology industry has become the "innovation hub" for the global IT industry and challenged Taiwan's tech industry to take advantage of emerging technology transitions to create continuing demand and growth.
Intel will also deliver the "Lynnfield" and "Clarksfield" processors in the second half of the year and ship "Westmere" chips based on Intel's 32nm manufacturing with the company's second-generation Hafnium-based high-k metal gate transistor formula soon after. Combined, Maloney said the technology industry will have an almost infinite number of opportunities to create and ship new products into markets worldwide.
"Business growth has always come from new technology transitions in our industry," Maloney said. "This year we have a series of new technologies based on second-generation, high-k metal gate, as well as new software and WiMAX developments."
One such growth opportunity is the Intel Atom processor. In the year since Intel introduced Atom for netbooks and created this new category, the Intel-based devices have taken the world by storm with more than 75 netbook designs in retail stores and tens of millions units sold. Netbooks are compact mobile devices designed for basic Internet-related tasks such as browsing, listening to music, e-mailing and viewing videos. They are suited for first-time Internet users and people who desire an extra PC. They can also be used for playing basic online games, social networking and making voice-over-IP phone calls.
While demonstrating "Pine Trail" running on a netbook, Maloney said it would have improved performance, lower thermals and a reduction in average power for longer battery life. It will also feature an increased graphics core frequency for improved visuals. "Pine Trail" will be a 2-chip platform versus today's 3-chip platform, with graphics and memory controller moving onto the processor, resulting in a smaller overall footprint that enables smaller, thinner designs and lower platform cost.
In addition, Maloney showed a beta version 2.0 of the Moblin operating system project for netbooks. The Moblin project features a rich, new user interface, better system responsiveness and fast boot times.
To demonstrate how easy and fun the Intel-based netbooks can be to use, five children joined Maloney to do an online scavenger hunt. Maloney also mentioned that children or second and third computers in the home were a mostly untapped growth market.
Maloney invited Mooly Eden, Intel Vice President and General Manager, Mobile Platforms Group, on stage to show off the latest Intel-based laptops including ultra-thin systems, which Intel believes will be a new major volume sales market for the company. These Intel-based ultra-low voltage notebooks can measure under an inch thick, weigh less than 3 pounds and can include wireless options such as Intel My WiFi or WiMAX. For computer users particularly interested in thin and light platforms, these products offer the best possible tradeoff between space, weight, performance, power and price. Intel has offered ultra-low voltage processors for more than eight years, and last year introduced a smaller version of these chips for ultra-thin systems—thin enough to even fit inside an envelope. With this new introduction the starting price for sleek ultra-thin systems can be as low as $499, more affordable for mainstream consumers.
Regarding the future of desktop PCs, Maloney said, "Our next-generation chipsets are taking our 32nm processor performance to mainstream PCs with products such as 'Clarkdale' and 'Arrandale' dramatically improving the PC experience."
Maloney said despite the slowdown in the world economy, HD video is growing at an incredible rate. In fact, HDMI is the most popular interface technology for HD and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 23 percent through 2012. Intel's next-generation processor, "Lynnfield," will deliver stunning HD to mainstream desktop PCs and become available in the latter half of this year. Maloney said that compared to last year's "Penryn"-based mainstream solutions, computer users can expect more than 40 percent better performance.
Another growth area is bridging the digital divide, the more than 5 billion people around the world who have never had access to or used computers. Maloney believes the best way to solve this problem is to address both cost and connectivity challenges. He disclosed an initiative Intel is working on in India called "Project Blue" that combines affordable nettops based on the Intel Atom processor with WiMAX connectivity.
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