SAN FRANCISCO -- Intel Corp. has accelerated the launch of its Pentium 4 mobile processor, which will be unveiled officially within the next two weeks, the company confirmed in an interview with EBN Monday.
Even before its introduction, the notebook P4 will receive the spotlight during a keynote speech here at the Intel Developer Forum Wednesday.
Don MacDonald, director of group marketing for the Intel Mobile Platform Group, said the design of the notebook version of the P4 has been modified to meet the needs of laptop PCs, specifically in the areas of battery life and heat dispersion.
"We didn't just take a desktop Pentium 4 and put it in a mobile platform," MacDonald said.
The mobile P4 will match the same 3.5-hour average battery life of its lower-power Pentium III predecessor and will have the same 24W to 30W thermal envelope as the PIII, according to MacDonald. "We modified the design to reduce the leakage current -- just the opposite goal of the desktop Pentium 4, which wants higher leakage current to increase the frequency," he said.
Despite the lower power, the mobile P4 will be introduced at a 1.5GHz frequency or higher. MacDonald said the chip will reach 2GHz by year's end.
The mobile P4 will use Intel's 0.13-micron process technology, the same design rule as the new desktop Northwood P4 processor the company introduced in January.
The mobile P4 will be used in notebooks, both traditional and thin-and-light models. It is expected to shortly replace the Pentium IIIM Tualatin. The Tualatin processors, however, have a longer life on Intel's mobile roadmap for use in tablet and mini-notebooks, which require even lower power than the mobile P4, MacDonald said.
Intel acknowledged that the next major change in the mobile market will be the rampup of wireless mobile PCs. As access increases for wireless connections in airports, convention centers, hotels, and other public places, "we are going to see an entirely new demand for mobile PCs," MacDonald said.
One immediate change will be a requirement for even smaller and lighter notebooks. "Customers wanting to connect while on the run don't want to be bothered even by the seven-pound average weight of today's notebooks," MacDonald said.
Another new demand will be greater security of wireless transmission, to prevent interception and eavesdropping, which will require the addition of software encryption.
To that end, Intel said it is drafting a Protective Access Architecture to cover a variety of wireless PC security requirements. MacDonald said more details of the new security infrastructure will be spelled out at the fall IDF in September.
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