Intel "Cedar Trail" to be priced cheaper than current Atom CPUs

As the immediate successor to the Oak Trail line of Intel Atom processors, Cedar Trail will have plenty of high expectations to meet when it launches this holiday season. Fortunately, the new Atom platform may have at least one important advantage over its predecessor: price.

According to a Digitimes report, the upcoming Cedar Trail CPUs will cost manufacturers 30-50 percent less than existing Atom CPUs. In dollars, each Cedar Trail chip may be as low as $42 to $47, compared to $64 to $86 of current Atom processors. For example, the Atom Z670 was reportedly around $75 at launch, while the Tegra 2 chip averaged just $20 a piece.

The goal of the cheaper chips is to provide more attractive quotes for netbook and tablet producers, which could potentially allow the Atom brand to have a greater presence in the mobile market. Cedar Trail-based devices would then have lower selling prices as well, an important advantage over the more popular and award-winning Tegra 2 platform.

Performance-wise, the new Intel dual-core platform is expected to carry a fanless design with reduced power consumption, largely due to its 32nm architecture. We may have to wait until winter time before any Cedar Trail devices make their way into market.

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