Intels current mobile platform Napa get's a successor named Santa Rosa at the beginning of May. It comes in two versions, the PM65 and the GM965 featuring an integrated graphics core (DirectX 9.0c, up to 256MB shared memory).
The Santa Rosa platform will come with the new pin-grid array based 'Socket P' which is keyed differently than the current Socket M. Together with the Santa Rosa Intel will introduce Socket P CPUs. These special Meroms get a higher FSB (800MHz) than their Socket M counterpart but will come with frequencies as high as 2.8GHz. Sadly this Core 2 Extreme X7900 will be released somewhat later in the second half of this year.

Intel has added to the competition among solid state hard drive manufacturers with its new Z-U130 range. Based on NAND flash memory and using the USB 2.0/1.1 interface, the drive is claimed to be superior to standard flash drives because it offers faster boot times, embedded code storage, rapid data access and low-power storage alternatives. Compared to standard hard drives, solid state drives have lower seek times, faster start up times, improved read times, lower power consumption, silent operation and they normally weigh less, not to mention no moving parts which allows for improved reliability. Intel will be starting out with 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB versions, however the larger densities won't be available until later in the year. Although these drives aren't yet able to compete on price or capacity, as the technology develops and more efficient production techniques are found they are likely to become the replacements for current-day spinning drives.Update: this information is now available in an Intel Press Release

Intel is reported to be planning new Pentium and Celeron processors based on the Core 2 Duo architecture. According to Chinese site HKEPC, the Pentium E2000 series will be launched on June 3rd, with the 1.6GHz E2140 and the 1.8GHz E2160. Both will feature a 1MB L2 cache with an 800MHz frontside bus, priced at $74 and $84 respectively. Whilst these two CPUs should replace the Pentium D 925 and 935, there will also be a new Celeron 400 series, with a 430 running at 1.8GHz and a 440 running at 2GHz, both of which will have a 512KB L2 cache and 800MHz FSB.

Intel is also expected to update its Core 2 Extreme range during the third quarter of this year, with the 2.66GHz QX6700 being replaced by the new 2.93GHz QX6800, which features a 1066MHz FSB and 4MB L2 cache - the price is expected to remain at $999, and this processor will be replaced with a 45nm chip sometime next year.

HKEPC has info about upcoming price cuts on Intel's CPUs:One can only wonder what would make Intel cut prices so much, especially on their high end models! This move will truly bring quad-core to the masses. Is Intel scared of what AMD has in store?

Chipmaker Intel is set to launch two new processors for its quad-core range on March 12th - the Xeon L5320 and the Xeon L5310. The new CPUs require much less energy than previous quad-core models, running on just 50 watts of power, a 38% drop from the 80 watt models available now. Both will feature an 8MB L2 cache using a 1066MHz FSB. The L5320 will run at 1.86GHz, whilst the L5310 is just behind on 1.6GHz, with the processors priced at $519 and $455 respectively. The new Xeons are compatible with existing dual and quad-core Xeon processors and are designed to work in Intel's Bensley server platform, taking the company total to 11 quad-core processors.

Update: this information is now available in an Intel Press Release

Recent roadmaps from Intel have suggested that the company intends to mass produce phase change memory by the end of 2007, allowing consumers to sample this new form of storge. Phase change memory, or PCM, is expected to succeed flash memory as the major non-volatile memory, being both faster and smaller. PCM is also more reliable - flash memory can degrade after as few as 10,000 writes, whilst PCM can last for over 100 million write cycles. Intel licensed the technology from Ovonyx in 2000, with IBM, Macronix and Qimonda announcing strong developments in the technology towards the end of last year. Intel hasn't set any firm dates yet, but phase change memory could be just around the corner.

Although ATI was a respected manufacturer of chipsets for Intel-based motherboards, the merger with AMD shook up the market a little bit, leaving some doubt as to whether or not AMD would continue to supply hardware supporting its major competitor. However, AMD has revealed that it is happy for the old ATI chipset development to continue, provided that Intel is willing to have AMD producing chipsets for its processors. AMD has also admitted that it isn't planning to dominate the chipset market like Intel - its current aim is just to have a reasonable share, instead of trying to topple Intel and face a price war.

DigiTimes compiled a comprehensive chart about the latest price cuts Intel is about to announce. The source of these information is an Economic Daily News report which states Intel was forced by AMD's new low-cost chipset RS690 to slash the prices earlier than planned. So it makes quite sense that only the remains of the Desktop NetBurst microarchitecture CPUs are affected:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 28, 2007 - Members of a special United Nations group met today with Silicon Valley leaders to explore how the technology industry, government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can come together to bolster development around the world.

Intel Corporation and the U.N.'s Global Alliance for Information and Communications Technology and Development (U.N. GAID) jointly organized the summit. Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, who also chairs the U.N. GAID, said the meeting provided a critical platform for sharing ideas and forging partnerships among prominent members of government, the international development community and Silicon Valley's businesses, academia and the venture capital industry.

Intel Corporation today announced that it will invest $1 billion to $1.5 billion in its Rio Rancho site to retool Fab 11X for production on Intel's next generation 45 nanometer (nm) manufacturing process. Fab 11X will be the company's fourth factory scheduled to use the 45nm process, with production in New Mexico scheduled to start in the second half of next year.

Intel Corporation today announced the mobile clinical assistant (MCA) is ready to enable nurses to spend more time with patients, do their jobs on the move while remaining connected, and manage the administration of medications. Motion Computing's C5 is the first product based on Intel's MCA platform and has earned support from clinicians and nurses participating in pilot studies around the world.

As Intel's first platform built specifically for healthcare, the MCA is an important step in the company's efforts to better connect clinicians to comprehensive patient information on a real-time basis. The lightweight, spill-resistant, drop-tolerant and easily disinfected MCA allows nurses to access up-to-the-minute patient records and to document a patient's condition instantly, enhancing clinical workflow while reducing the staff's administrative workload.

Intel has added the Celeron D 365 processors to its Celeron D series for desktops. The Celeron D 365 operates at 3.60GHz and it is the highest model of the series. It uses a 512KB L2 cache and supports a 533MHz FSB. Produced with Intel's 65nm manufacturing process, the Celeron D processor also includes the Execute Disable Bit capability. This feature, combined with a supported operating system, allows memory to be marked as executable or non-executable. For additional information visit this page.

Intel Corp. announced on Wednesday that its server and workstation products made using 45nm process technology are on schedule, and will be available this year.

Kirk Skaugen, the chief of Intel's Xeon group, said during a conference call with analysts that the company plans to introduce low-power quad-core chip with 50W thermal design power in early March, to present code-named Caneland multi-processor server platform in Q3 2007 and to launch the first Xeon DP (dual processor) products made using 45nm process technology in the second half of the year.

The new Intel Xeon 45nm microprocessor for dual-socket applications based on the core that Intel calls Penryn will be drop-in compatible with the company's contemporary Intel 5000-series core-logic sets (code-named Bensley and Glidewell platforms), however, there will be an improved version of the Intel 5000-series chipset aimed at HPC/WS market segments that features 1600MHz processor system bus (PSB) coming in the second half of the year to support higher-performance Xeon "Clovertown" chips with operation at 3GHz.

In a presentation Intel reveals a 3GHz 1600MHz FSB quad core Xeon. New features aren't mentioned. If Intel doesn't stay ahead of AMD with this chip they have yet another weapon nearing completion, the 45nm Xeon parts which should offer even higher clock speeds and more cache are over 3 months ahead of schedule. Intel will also launch Tigerton for quad socket configurations in Q3 this year, with Tigerton Intel should reclaim the crown on the multi socket market as well. If this will actually be enough to beat Barcelona (K10, former K8L) is yet to be seen, it looks promising though.

For the full presentation follow the source.

ChileHardware bring us pictures of a Micro ATX motherboard featuring Intel's G33 chipset (otherwise known as Bearlake), coupled with the ICH9 southbridge.

Specifications are likely to be the following:

• Socket LGA 775, Micro ATX
• Supports Intel Core 2 Duo/Celeron 400 Series Processor
• Intel G33 + ICH9
• FSB 1333 MHz
• Supports Dual Channel DDR2 667/800 MHz
• 4 x DDR2 DIMM Memory Slots, Max. Supports up to 8GB Memory
• 1 x PCI-E x16, 1 x PCI-E x1, 2 x PCI Slots
• On Board Graphic Max. Memory Share 384 MB
• 8+2-Channel HD Audio, 12 x USB 2.0
• 4 x SATAII 3Gb/s Connectors, GbE LAN

Alienware, a famous computer manufacturer and system integrator, today announced that the Area-51 7500 desktops will be available with Intel's quad-core Q6600 CPUs.

According to senior vice president Brian Joyce, "…customers will instantly see a performance increase on processor-intensive applications such as gaming, video editing and encoding."

In addition to four computing cores in a single processor package, the unique-looking Alienware-branded 7500 also features Windows Vista, NVIDIA Next Generation Graphics, low-latency DDR 2 memory, nForce 6 SLI x16 Motherboard and HDCP ready graphics.

Primarily aimed at gamers and multimedia enthusiasts, the Area-51 7500 costs around £1,408 inc VAT (approx. $2800) and will be available from 6th March from the Alienware website.

The lawsuit, brought about by investors, accuses computer maker Dell Inc. of "secretly receiving approximately $250 million a quarter in likely illegal kickbacks payments" from its long time partner Intel. This money was supposedly received in return for an exclusive purchase agreement for Intel's microprocessors. Chip maker Intel claims that the accusations are just a renewal of similar previous complaints by chip maker AMD (Advanced Micro Devices). Dell would not comment on the lawsuit. In the past Dell has only used processors manufactured by Intel, but just last year began buying processors from Intel's competition AMD.

In addition, Dell is also currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Justice Dept. for its accounting practices.

Source: CNNMoney

Pictures of parts of a motherboard using Intel's P35 Express chipset have been posted at Chile Hardware:Motherboards featuring the upcoming Intel P35 Express variant from the upcoming Bearlake-family desktop chipsets will be some of the first to support DDR3 memory. They are officially slated for late 2007.

Apparently the chipset not only supports DDR3, but is also backwards compatible with DDR2. However, both cannot be used at the same time. The leaked motherboard supports up to four sticks of DDR3 memory rated at 800 MHz or 1066 MHz.

It will also support up to a 1333 MHz front-side-bus on Socket T, also known as LGA775 processors. LGA775 processors supported by the upcoming P35 Express-based board include Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Celeron 4xx-series. There is no mention if previous Pentium 4, Pentium D and Celeron D processors for LGA775 remain supported on the new platform.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 11, 2007 - Intel Corporation researchers have developed the world's first programmable processor that delivers supercomputer-like performance from a single, 80-core chip not much larger than the size of a finger nail while using less electricity than most of today's home appliances. This is the result of the company's innovative 'Tera-scale computing' research aimed at delivering Teraflop -- or trillions of calculations per second --performance for future PCs and servers. Technical details of the Teraflop research chip will be presented at the annual Integrated Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this week in San Francisco.

As you probably know, Intel is working on their own graphics card. Most people scoff at this idea, considering that Intel was rumored to buy NVIDIA so that they could have graphics cards. However, in a few years (late 2008/2009), Intel is planning on becoming a serious threat to the market dominance owned by NVIDIA and ATI. Intel is claiming that by late 2008 they will have at least sampled a card with multiple cores (up to sixteen) on one die. They also claim they will be able to do this on a 32nm architecture. This 16 core, 32nm GPU is estimated to run sixteen times faster than the 8800GTX.

For the first time in 66 years, there are an equal number of female and male finalists.

Forty high school seniors today were named finalists for the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) 2007. The competition is America's oldest and most prestigious high school science competition; six former finalists have won the Nobel Prize and others have been awarded the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Science and MacArthur Foundation fellowships.

Intel expects to introduce its high-end Core 2 Extreme branding to notebooks in Q3'2007 according to the latest roadmap. The upcoming Core 2 Extreme X7800 uses the same Merom core used by the Core 2 Duo mobile family of processors. Intel's Core 2 Extreme X7800 will arrive clocked at 2.6GHz with 800MHz FSB and 4MB of L2 cache like the rest of the Core 2 Duo family. Intel technologies such as VT, EIST, EM64T and XD/NX bit are also supported, though Intel has removed support for Intel Dynamic Acceleration. The Core 2 Extreme X7800 for mobile will remain at the top of Intel's chain of mobile processors until the upcoming Core 2 Extreme X7900(2.8GHz 4MB L2) dethrones it in Q4'2007. The price of Core 2 Duo Extreme X7800 for notebooks in Q3'2007 is expected to be $795 per-unit in 1,000-unit quantities.

The Intel Core 2 Duo series is about to embark on a die shrink, from 65nm to 45nm. The new Core 2 Duo's, codenamed "Penryn", will have a slew of new features. The Penryn's will support a new set of SSE instructions, have higher clock speeds while maintaining the same power draw, and have a larger L2 Cache. The dual core Penryn will have 410 million transistors, and the quad core Penryn will have 820 million. All of the Penryn's will be on a 300mm package. Like with the current generation quad core offerings, the quad core Penryn's will have two dual core processors on one package. The Penryn series will have the same power requirements as the Conroe, which translates to 35W laptop chips, 65W dual-core desktop chips, and 80W quad-core desktop chips. Intel has successfully tested the Penryn's on several operating systems for stability, and we should see something commercially available around Q2 2007.

Penryn, the 45nm successor to Conroe on the Intel roadmap, will have several new features the previous lacked. One of these is Intel HyperThreading, which would give a computer four logical cores on a dual-core processor. Intel's Penryn may also have up to 6MB of L2 Cache, and other than the die shrink, will have a lot of minor performance tweaks.

Intel Corporation today introduced the Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N network connection, an upgrade to the wireless component found inside Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology and other Intel-based laptops that helps consumers better connect to wireless networks. As notebook PCs increasingly download broadband-intense content such as movies, videos and music, a more powerful networking solution is needed. Based on the draft 802.11n Wi-Fi specification, the Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N technology addresses that need by offering users up to five times the performance and twice the wireless range - while providing up to an extra hour of notebook battery life when compared to existing Draft-N products.