Intel Details Next Centrino

By Suzanne Deffree -- Electronic News, 3/7/2006

SAN FRANCISCO -- The next generation of Intel Corp.’s Centrino mobile technology, codenamed Santa Rosa, was detailed for the first time at IDF today.

Executive VP Sean Maloney introduced the technology during his afternoon keynote, saying Santa Rosa is designed to give users better overall performance and graphics, improved wireless connectivity and improved security and manageability.

The follow-on to Napa is slated for Q1 2007 and is expected to include a more powerful mobile microprocessor, an improved graphics chipset, codenamed Crestline; a 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter, codenamed Kedron; as well as Intel-optimized advanced management and security solutions. The platform will also include Intel’s NAND flash-based platform accelerator, codenamed Robson, which targets more rapid boot-up time and power savings.

Santa Rosa will use Intel’s next-generation dual-core mobile microprocessor based on Intel’s Core microarchitecture, codenamed Merom, and will be pin-to-pin compatible with Napa. An initial version of Merom will also be available for the current Centrino Duo platform to align with the 2006 holiday buying cycle and will be socket or pin-compatible with the current version of Intel Core Duo processors.