With a never-ending need for better battery life and performance from netbooks and eReaders, there was welcome news this week from chipmakers Intel, Nvidia and Freescale on more efficient processors.
Intel released a faster version of its latest “Pine Trail”-codenamed Atom processor, lifting it to a 1.83Ghz clock speed from 1.66Ghz. Nvidia said its new ION separate graphics processor would give a 10x graphics performance improvement over Pine Trail netbooks that just use integrated graphics.Freescale promised faster page turns , higher resolution and longer battery life on eReaders from its new chip.
Intel made little fuss about the new Atom version and with good reason,according to Engadget . It said it saw no noticeable improvement in speeds, but held out hope that Intel wouldannounce further Atom improvements at the CeBIT tech show on Tuesday.
Nvidia announced its next-generation ION processor at CeBIT. Despite their uneasy relationship as companies, Nvidia has been tying ION to Intel’s Atom processors to boost the performance of netbooks and enable more powerful operating systems.
The Silicon Valley company says the new ION will power netbooks that can run Windows 7 Home Premium rather than the Starter edition that comes with more basic machines.
ION enables streaming HD video and smooth graphics for PC games. Its Optimus technology chooses between the ION processor and integrated graphics depending on the application, thereby maximising battery life, which it says it is stretching to ten hours.
While netbook IONs have eight processor cores, a 16-core version will be used in all-in-one PCs.
The 10-inch screen Acer Aspire One 532G , on sale in April, and 12-inch ASUS 1201PN netbook are expected to be the first new ION netbooks to be introduced. New all-in-one PCs with ION will include the ASUS EeeTop 2010PNT and Lenovo C200.
Freescale announced its first processor designed specifically for eReaders, the i.MX508, incorporating ARM’s Cortex-A8 design and the latest E Ink controller.
Current eReaders are noticeably slow in their page turns and low in resolution. Freescale said the new chip would run at 800Mhz making it twice as fast as its previous processor adapted for the market.
The added power would make flipping through a digital book much faster and enable the chip to cope with larger format eReaders, higher resolutions and colour.
Integrating the E Ink display controller will reduce the number of parts and lower costs – Freescale expects $150 devices to be available later this year, down from $200 budget versions now.
