Intel Pine Trail Next-Gen Atom Chipset Detailed

Intel's next-gen Atom platform, Pine Trail, may have been reasonably well known before now, but the CPU manufacturer has just released [PDF link] the first official details about the new netbook and nettop chips.  Expected to reach the market later this year, Pine Trail's biggest change is in integrating the graphics core into the processor, slimming down both the overall size and the platform's power requirements.

This Pineview processor and GPU combination is then paired with the new Tiger Point I/O chipset, which replaces the existing ICH7/ICH7M chipset.  Tiger Point will support SATA, USB 2.0, PCI Express and Intel HD Audio.

The improvements over Atom can be viewed in two ways: firstly, Pine Trail can run faster, both in terms of processor performance and graphics performance, for the same or reduced price.  Secondly, the lower power requirements – said to be around 7W TDP – mean that battery life is improved and, albeit with a performance impact, fanless setups can now be entertained.  Pine Trail is expected to reach the market in Q4 2009.