Netbooks Grow Up with Intel’s Ultra Low Voltage Platform

by Netbook Dad on August 3rd, 2009

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Netbooks are really good at what they do: provide a very portable, long-lasting small notebook at a very low price.  However, what if you really need some additional horsepower? What if you want more than a 10-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel LCD screen? What if you actually want to view some of that 720p video footage that you just shot on your new Nikon D300s dSLR Camera? And what if you want to do all of that but still have a light and compact laptop with great battery life that doesn’t cost too much more than a high-end Netbook?

Well, the answer is something old becoming new again. Companies like Intel are repurposing mature chip designs and running them through their latest silicon process technology. The results are a smaller, more capable processor that uses little power (only 10 Watts for a Dual-Core CPU) but offers many more transistors (410 million) versus a comparable Atom (47 million). Intel is calling their latest platform Ultra Low Voltage (ULV). You may also see Consumer ULV (CULV) listed on various websites. However, in an effort to make things more confusing, Intel will label their parts as Core 2 Duo, Solo and Pentium CPUs. Either way, the results should be quite impressive for a Netbook Dad. In fact, Acer, with it’s Timeline series is claiming 8 hours of battery life from their latest laptops… Pretty Impressive for Dual-core laptop.

 

In the coming months, you will begin to see many ULV Laptops coming to a retailer near you. with screens as small as 11-inches, these smaller laptop packages will promise greater mobility. Some will eliminate the optical drive, most will be under 1-inch thick, but all will trend towards a competitive price. In fact, Intel and Microsoft are highly motivated because the margins for this platform are much higher compared with traditional netbooks. So expect to see as many product variations and competitiveness in this space as you have for Netbooks.

Intel Ultra Low Voltage Processor Specifications

For those Netbook Dads who may be searching for a nice laptop for you kid as they go back to school, here is a list of processors from Intel that you may find inside:

Processor Number

Cores

Clock Speed

Max TDP(Watts)

L2 Cache

Silicon Tech

Price

(per 1k)

Core 2 Duo

SU9600

2

1.60 GHz

10 W

3 MB

45nm

$ 289.00

Core 2 Duo

SU9400

2

1.40 GHz

10 W

3 MB

45nm

$ 262.00

Core 2 Duo

SU9300

2

1.20 GHz

10 W

3 MB

45nm

$ 262.00

Core 2 Solo

SU3500

1

1.40 GHz

5.5 W

3 MB

45nm

$ 262.00

Core 2 Solo

SU3300

1

1.20 GHz

5.5 W

3 MB

45nm

$ 262.00

Pentium

SU2700

1

1.30 GHz

10 W

2 MB

45nm

$?

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