Intel Cedar Trail Atom Chips to Ship in Netbooks This January 2012 [Will Intel's New Cedar Trail Class Atom Chips Help Save Netbooks?]

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Intel is hoping to stave of the demise of netbooks in the consumer market, amid the increasing popularity of tablet computers. This January 2012, Intel’s partner manufacturers will start shipping Cedar Trail Atom chips in netbook computers.

Intel earlier announced its upgrade to its mobile Atom processor line, with performance and energy efficiency in mind. The 32-nm microprocessor architecture, dubbed Cedar Trail, promises better battery life amid improved overall performance in low-power devices like netbook computers. According to Intel, top PC makers are gearing up to release their own netbooks by the start of 2012, which include Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba. Netbooks will reportedly start at an attractive $199 price point.

The new Cedar Trail chips will include the Atom N2600, running at 1.6 GHz. The processor will draw 3.5 W of power at load. Intel also plans to ship the N2800, running at 1.86 GHz, drawing 6.5 W. Cedar Trail chips support high-definition playback, in conjunction with HDMI output, as well as wireless technology for streaming content wirelessly to compatible TV sets.

Cedar Trail has double the graphics processing performance of its predecessors, while still reducing power consumption by 20%. New Cedar Trail-powered netbooks will have up to 10 hours of battery life per charge. While Intel has already made a formal announcement as to the release of Cedar Trail well ahead of CES in January 2012, the company will be present at the trade show to showcase its latest products for netbooks, tablets, smartphones and PCs.

But apart from staving off the demise of netbooks, Intel is also planning to push the use of Cedar Trail chips in tablet computers. However, manufacturers and consumers are anticipating Intel’s upcoming Medfield platform, which promises even better performance at low power consumption, and so the company is focusing its efforts on netbooks. Intel notes that while the demand for netbooks has fallen in Europe and the U.S., demand is actually growing in emerging markets, where cheap full-fledged computers are considered good alternatives to desktops and notebooks as primary computing devices.

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