Intel Oak Trail CPUs for Tablets Soon

Rossi Fernandes • April 12, 2011, 10:31:11 IST

Intel takes aim at ARM; first tablets expected in May.

At the IDF (Intel Developers Forum) on in Beijing this week, Intel launched the new Z670 processors from the Oak Trail family for tablets. Intel also showed their 32nm Cedar Trail processors, which should be headed to netbooks and desktops. The Cedar Trail platform should be able to handle 1080p content, DisplayPort and HDMI output. Tablets based on the Oak Trail platform are bound to be seen as products as early as May. Some of the largest tablet manufacturers such as Fujitsu, Lenovo and even Razer are going to be releasing final products running operating systems such as Windows, Android and Intel’s own MeeGo.

Will ARM’s dominance be threatened?

The 45nm Oak Trail CPUs which will be 60 per cent smaller and should be able to handle 1080p HD decoding thanks to the graphics controller being in the same die. The chipset being used on the platform is the Intel SM65 Express. Power consumption is said to drop, as well. The launch of the Oak Trail CPUs should offer some competition to ARM’s popular architecture, which has pretty much consumed the entire tablet space.

Written by Rossi Fernandes

Our resident Hardware Ninja, Rossi, lives for speed - by uhh riding his bicycle. He's Tech2's utility man, dividing his time between cameras, software and intense bouts of Quake III. He's also a fan of all things obscure, case in point, Live for Speed (sic). Never heard of it? We rest our case. In his spare time he tries to teach our new joinees the tricks of the trade even though the blood sweat and tears, but give him a camera and all things forgotten. see more