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Intel demonstrates Pentium4 chip for notebook PCs

Intel Corp demonstrated a prototype of its Pentium4 for laptop computers, as the biggest chipmaker tries to use tinier circuits to reduce the power consumption of its devices.

The 2GHz processor, based on a new manufacturing method that makes thinner 0.13 micron wires, prepared video files for transmission in seconds. While the chip won't go on sale until the first half of next year, customers are getting early samples now.

Chipmakers such as Intel and Transmeta Corp are racing to extend the battery lives of laptops as users travel more and need more computing power. Intel has added a lineup of Pentium III processors with energy-saving features that make them better for notebooks and yesterday gave details of Banias, its first mobile chip designed from scratch, due out in 2003.

"We're going to be relentless in our execution in bringing these technologies into mobile," Intel Vice President Frank Spindler, who runs the laptop group, said at a conference in San Jose, California.

The laptop version of Pentium 4 will start out at more than 1.5GHz and reach 2GHz by the end of next year, he said. The top mobile Pentium III currently runs at 1.13GHz.

The Santa Clara, California-based company also detailed several new standards it's developing with other companies for ways to connect chips, components, PCs and peripherals like cameras and printers. While the speed of processors has continued to climb, the rest of the system has bottlenecks that slow information and transactions. Overhauling these connections could help smooth out trouble spots.

"We as an industry have a responsibility and an opportunity," said Louis Burns, who runs Intel's desktop-chip unit. "Business will come back when we put some products into the market that people want to buy." Intel demonstrated an early chip based on its low-power XScale design for wireless gear such as cellular phones and electronic organizers. XScale-based products will come out in the first quarter of next year.
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