Intel Pine trail’s successor is 2011

It will be called Cedar Trail

Pine trail is yet to be introduced (it is coming in January first week – probably!) but we have already heard rumors of the successor, which will be called Cedar Trail and should be introduced in 2011.

Although not sure, it can be a deviation from the existing 45nm technology to 32nm if the recently leaked road-map is to be believed. The map says Intel is planning to go even up to 15nm. The Atom has become popular recently, especially with the netbook category. The N450, first to come out of the Pine trail, will integrate the memory controller and the graphics on the same processor chip which was earlier built on a separate chipset (945GC/945GSE chipset in case of Atom processors using Intel Core Logic architecture). This move will allow motherboards to be built with just a four layer PCB since trace routing will be much simpler.

Now Cedar Trail will further sharpen the objective of making the Atom processors more and more energy efficient rather than making them more powerful but memory and battery guzzlers. This will also drive the price down.

Along with the Atom N450 which is rumored to be released on January 3^rd 2010, and N470, which should come out in the H1 of 2010 as well as the D410 and D510, will cater to Intel partners throughout 2010 and then Cedar Trail is expected to take over in 2011.

This move is extremely important for Intel, as it needs to maintain its supremacy in the emerging verticals as well to retain the competitive edge over other players like AMD who is almost breathing down its neck. The emerging vertical now is the netbooks, where fortunately AMD’s hold is much less than Intel’s. Hopefully Cedar Trail will help Intel continue to do this.