Intel’s next-gen Pine-trail to get delayed further

It could be delayed as far as till next year

Go back in time a little, and you’ll find there has been a major confusion conjuring up as to when the Pinetrail (Codename for Atom N450) will finally get released. Last I knew it was going to be this September. Alas, that is not the case – again. Now it looks like the company may be pushing back the launch date until early next year – as reported by Digitimes. They reported that several PC vendors are indicating Intel decided to hold off on the new chip so that its launch wouldn’t impact current generation netbook sales.

The current generation chips referred to here are the N270 and the N280 which are very popular with netbook vendors. This move is expected to increase the self-life a bit more before they become obsolete. By the way Intel is expected to unveil its new product roadmap as well as new technology innovations at the upcoming IDF to be held in San Francisco from September 22-24, according to Digitimes. It should include the Atom N450 alright.

The Atom N450 CPU isn’t significantly faster than today’s Atom chips. Its primary advantage will be improved energy efficiency. These probably won’t be the dual-core chips as being rumored earlier, but definitely lighter and smaller. These platforms will have a single-core Atom N450 CPU with built-in northbridge functions and should be paired with the new NM10 (Tiger Point) chipset.