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Thursday 9th September 2004

IDF, Fall 2004: Intel eyes all-day battery life 2:52AM, Thursday 9th September 2004

All-day battery life by 2010 is the new Intel target according to Anand Chandrasekher (pictured), General Manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group. The commitment sometimes varied to 'eight hours of battery life by 2010' but the principle was the same: 'longer battery life is the new frontier'. Intel is moving power management even further up the priority list for mobile computing.

How is this extended life to be achieved? As well as intending to further squeeze the requirements of power hungry displays, Chandrasekher highlighted new battery technologies, such as an Advanced Li-Polymer lithium battery, which can increase energy storage density, and a Zinc Alkaline alternative, which reportedly offers 2x the charge of current lithium batteries (both are pictured). They will be capable of supporting 100 Watt battery capacities.

To help spread the lighter, less power hungry message for notebook computing, he also confirmed a couple of initiatives. There is now an Intel Battery Life Optimisation Program, by which Intel will work with OEMs to share and publicise power management techniques for optimising battery usage. The goal is encourage the development of components that

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are less power hungry. There is also the corresponding release of the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) specification V3.0.

Chandrasekher also pointed to 'Napa' on the Centrino horizon. To get our Centrino codenames in order, 'Carmel' was the codename for the original Centrino trinity, launched in March 2003, which featured the 'Banias' processor core in the Pentium-M. The new Centrino platform, codenamed 'Sonoma' and featuring the Dothan core, was officially flagged to appear in the first quarter of 2005.

The Pentium-M willl have a faster 533MHz front-side bus, the Alviso chipset (supporting Intel High Definition Audio) and the recently released Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG network connector. Apparently there are already 125 OEM designs for the forthcoming of Centrino, which compares with the 33 designs available for the original incarnation.

Continuing the Californian wine theme, the succeeding Napa platform will feature the 'Yonah' processor, which will be a specifically mobile implantation of a dual-core 65nm processor. This will be accompanied by the 'Calistoga' chipset, which will have fourth generation Intel integrated graphics support, and the 'Golan' wireless chip, which will support 802.11i as well as A,B and G flavours of 802.11 wireless networking. It will come in a mini-card form factor to enable smaller designs (pictured).

Alun Williams

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