Intel to discontinue Atom Z5xx chips in a year’s time
In the latest advancement on what’s brewing at Intel - certain exclusive documents suggest that Intel is, from 2011 onwards planning to discontinue it Atom Z5xx chips. This would include discontinuation of the following chips as mentioned here –
The Intel Atom Z510, Z515, Z520, Z530, Z540, Z550, and Z560 chip as well as the US15X system controller hub.
The chips stated above have CPU clock speeds within the range of 1.1GHz to 2.13GHz. These Atom Z5xx chips are rated marginally lower on the performance scale as compared to the Intel Atom N-series chips (which follow a different architecture than the Atom Z5xx ) common in several notebooks, although the former are rated higher as far as power consumption is concerned.
This decision has been taken by Intel, riding on the back of its newly conceived range of Intel Atom Z6xx series. These are meant to be low power processors for the hugely popular, in vogue and fast selling gadgets like netbooks, tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices.
Intel is slated to cease accepting orders for the Intel Atom Z5xx chips by May and will totally stop shipping the same by the end of the year 2011.