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An Atom-powered Intel? Not a chance

With Intel's focus on the new Atom-brand processors being described at the Intel Developer Forum this week, "Atom-powered" is the obvious description of the mobile Internet devices (MIDs) these chips will go into... and it seems like half the IDF stories on the Internet this week are using that phrase.

Intel, however, seems to want even more hyperbole-- it expects people to believe that Atom will recharge the whole company. CEO Paul Otellini reportedly said "This is as important to Intel as the launch of the Pentium in the mid-1990s"-- but that's ridiculous.… Read more

Intel Diamondville shuns dual-core

Intel's upcoming low-cost Diamondville notebook processor will break from Intel's multicore strategy of the last few years and be primarily a single-core processor.

In this respect Diamondville is not that different from Celeron, a long-standing design (introduced in 1998) that has been exclusively single-core until very recently. The reason for the single-core strategy is simple: With Diamondville, Intel has a "fanatical focus" on low power and low cost, according to Dean McCarron, founder and principal of Mercury Research. A single core means fewer transistors and lower power consumption.

Diamondville is not Celeron, however. "It's … Read more