Intel Integrates Dual Wireless Support Into Next-Generation Mobile CPU

Intel

At the Intel Developer Forum, held here through Thursday, Anand Chandrasekher, vice president and general manager of the Intel mobile platforms group, said Banias' integrated wireless capabilities will offer notebook and tablet users built-in wireless networking capabilities while allowing Intel to better control wireless networking power consumption.

Specifically, Chandrasekher said Banias, which is expected to be available in notebooks by the second half of 2003, saves on power by making sure that integrated radios are turned off when wireless networking capabilities are not being used.

Intel also has developed the ProSet utility software to let users roam from network to network without having to shut down applications, company executives said.

Another way Intel is working to ensure a smooth wireless experience is to test Banias' wireless capabilities to make sure top wireless access points will work without any hiccups, said Chandrasekher. Although 802.11 is an established standard, Chandrasekher noted there are still interoperability issues between some network cards and access points.

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"We will validate [Banias with a range of wireless access points so that when you take these platforms out in the marketplace you will have a good experience," he said.

Banias, Intel's next-generation processor architecture built from the ground up for mobile devices, is expected to shave as much as 25 percent off power requirements while offering what Intel calls "desktop performance." At the show, Intel demonstrated a Banias notebook encoding video at speeds Chandrasekher said are consistent with today's "Pentium III ultramobile" CPUs while running at 7 watts. Once the device was finished processing, it immediately dropped into sleep mode at 1 watt.

Chandrasekher said Intel added a number of new features to reduce overall power consumption. The chip will contain a large but power-aware cache, he said, enabling segments of the cache to shut down when not in use. The chip's system bus also will be power-aware and can shut itself off when not in use, he added.

At the same time, Intel has streamlined the way instructions are executed within the CPU to process as fast as possible but also in the most energy-efficient manner, Chandrasekher said.

Intel is still keeping quiet about processor and bus speeds available when devices ship next year. But industry observers have said the chip will probably ship at lower speeds than Pentium 4 mobile CPUs available today.