Intel Pine Trail still on track

Intel claims that Pine Trail based Atom processor will be launched this year

Intel Pine Trail architecture

Mooly Elen, general manager of Intel’s mobile platforms, confirmed that Intel’s new Atom processor for netbooks (codenamed Pine Trail) is on track and will be shipped in the second half of the year, with production versions on display at the Intel Developer Forum in September. This statement has put an end to earlier rumors that Intel has delayed the Pine Trail processor till Q1 2010.

The Pine Trail platform will, for the first time for Intel, sport an integrated graphics processor on the same piece of silicon as the main processor; the memory controller will also be placed on the same piece of silicon as the GPU and CPU. These changes will improve performance by reducing the time spent transferring information between components. It should also enable much smaller devices by reducing the size of the companion system chipset. The new processors would be more energy efficient and will also cost less.

Earlier this week Asus and Acer announced that they are not going to release any new netbooks based on the Atom N450 processor as Intel had delayed the launch of the Pine Trail processor to Q1 2010. This report has now been falsified as Mooly Elen is quite confident that Pine Trail will roll out within this year. It is still unclear whether we will be able to see netbooks using this platform in 2009 or Q1 2010.