World of Apple

Without any fanfare or press release, Intel has revealed its new Core 2 Duo “S” which is an improved version of the processor currently found in the MacBook Air. This new product is reported to be 60% smaller and more energy efficient than its predecessor by 3 watts.

(via Electronista)

Fortune reports on the growing relationship between Apple and Intel since the announcement three years ago that Apple would ditch IBM PowerPC processors for Intel’s offerings.

Last year Apple asked Intel to supply a small, thin processor for use in a very thin notebook.

“That was the first time they actually worked together on a custom project,” says Tim Bajarin, president of the Creative Strategies consulting firm. “Before that, everything was pretty much off the shelf. As a result, the relationship grew even further.”

Initially Intel said they couldn’t help but remembered that they had shelved a project a few years before.

Years earlier, researchers had dreamed up a similar chip in a tiny package, but the idea had been put on the back burner after PC makers gave it a ho-hum reception. The concept just had to be dusted off. “We had that small chip package pretty much sitting on the shelf,” Rattner recalls. Within a year, Intel had updated it to meet Apple’s needs and delivered it in volume.

Apple used the processor in the MacBook Air announced at Macworld 2008, Intel’s chief technology officer Justin Rattner says that Intel is working with Apple on more projects that are “equally aggressive”.

Intel confirmed yesterday that it will delay shipments of its upcoming Montevina chipset by as much as two months, with a formal launch in late-August. The delay could push the update to the MacBook notebooks to much later in the year.

“There were two minor issues we found during final testing – one with our integrated graphic chipsets, which we have found a workaround for but need to re-screen our parts, and second around our wireless Wi-Fi chip, which was a paperwork and certification mistake we made,” said Bill Kircos, a spokesman for Intel.

“Both of these led us to establishing a launch date for our mobile processors and discrete chipsets of the week of July 14th, and taking a couple of weeks to get the right readiness and volume for the rest of our components,” Kircos added. “We’re looking at early August for that.”

As a result of the delays Apple is unlikely to begin volume shipments of Montevina based notebooks until much later in the back-to-school buying season.

According to previous reports both the MacBook and MacBook Pro are expected to receive updated looks, the MacBook adopting an aluminium enclosure and the MacBook Pro taking some design hints from the MacBook Air.

DigiTimes reports that Intel is set to launch its mobile quad-core processor by the third-quarter of the year.

The Core 2 Extreme QX9300 will carry a $1038 price per 1000 units.

The 45-nanometer design will sport a core frequency of 2.53GHz, support for up to a 1066MHz front-side bus, and include 12MB of Level 2 cache. But with demand for high-end notebook systems reportedly below average, “Intel expects the quad-core notebook CPUs will not become standard in the performance/mainstream notebook market until the second half of 2009.”

The hefty power usage and price of the chip makes it seem an unlikely candidate for Apple notebooks.

Intel will next quarter introduce several new high-speed solid state drives (SSDs) including a new 160GB; double the capacity of the current drive used in the MacBook Air.

The new drives are expected to be 2.5-inch drives as well as 1.8-inch, the latter being compatible with the MacBook Air.

Intel’s NAND chief Troy Winslow also told News.com that the new Intel drives will boast transfer rates far superior to any existing offers.

With new competition, drive speeds will jump. Currently, the fastest SSDs from companies like Samsung approach 100MB/second for reading data. “What I can tell you is ours is much better than that,” Winslow said. Hard drives typically read data at about half this speed

The chief also added that the entire product line will include SATAII interfaces, delivering up to 3Gbps.

Finally the price of SSDs is expected to drop considerably over the next few years. It costs upwards of $1000 to use an SSD in a notebook these days but by 2010 this price could be reduced to just $200.

“Price declines are historically 40 percent per year,” said Winslow. “And in 2009, a 50 percent reduction, then again in 2010.

Finally Winslow highlighted the increasing role SSDs are playing in the server market due to the ability to accelerate performance more than sixfold when compared to even the highest performing traditional hard drives.

Winslow said that Intel recently did a video-on-demand demonstration where it streamed 4,000 videos simultaneously. Just to do the streaming (not to store the video), it took 62 15,000 RPM (very high-performance) hard drives, he said. “We were able to replace those 62 hard drives with 10 SATA (SSD) technology drives,” he said.

Apple has only just released updates to its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers but a series of reports over the last day point towards more updates in June.

The recently released MacBook and MacBook Pro models were updated to use Penryn; Intel’s latest processor belonging to the Santa Rosa mobile platform. The speed boost is being widely criticised as nothing special. According to Mac Rumors Apple was forced into updates due to Intel wishing to push forward with production of newer processors.

According to our sources, Apple was forced by Intel into upgrading the MacBooks at this time. Intel is aggressively phasing out the older generation 65nm Merom chips over the coming months. As a result, Apple needed to upgrade the MacBooks in the interim to maintain a proper supply.

Intel is planning to replace the Santa Rosa platform with Montevina (Centrino 2) in June of this year, with the introduction of a new platform will see the introduction of new Penryn processors.

DailyTech reports that the second-generation Penryn processors will boast a 1066MHz front-side bus and clock in as high as 2.8GHz.

It also comes as no surprise that all of Intel’s Centrino partners have indicated that they will announce notebook models based on the latest platform at the time of release.

DigiTimes also reported along the same lines on Monday, explaining that Intel is planning to very quickly phase out its Santa Rosa platform next quarter and push partners into adoption of Montevina.

Intel’s timetable seems to indicate that the company intends to drop shipments of Santa Rosa from 60% in the first quarter to just 35% in the second. The current processors are also expected to be 100% phased out before the years end.

Intel expects that around 18% of notebook shipments will be Montevina-based after the platform launch next quarter. Growing to 50% by the third quarter and 90% by the fourth.

AppleInsider writes that Apple will build a stronger relationship with Intel in 2008 by adopting its upcoming ‘Menlow’ Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform.

The sources who reported to AppleInsider that Apple would adopt ‘Menlow’ also noted that Apple was specifically interested in Intel’s upcoming 45-nanometer ‘Silverthorne’ processor, reportedly agreeing to use it in multiple products in 2008.

‘Silverthorne’ is a particularly good processor for mobile uses due to its small power usage, which can be anywhere between half a watt and 2 watts. The ‘Menlow’ platform also incorporates technologies such as 3G, WiFi and WiMAX.

‘Silverthorne’ is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2008.

Intel shows off iPhone-like device running future Moorestown processor

AppleInsider sources are unable to pinpoint which Apple products will take advantage of the new Intel processor but two fairly apparent products would be the 3G iPhone and long-rumoured ultra-portable Mac.

AppleInsider also briefly reports on ‘Moorestown’ an Intel mobile platform that is expected to be the successor to ‘Menlow’ with an estimated release date of 2009/2010.

During the Fall Intel Developers Forum, Intel executives showed off an unnamed ‘Moorestown’ processor, describing it as the ‘chip the iPhone would have wanted.’

During the processor demonstration Intel executives flaunted a device which was an apparent tribute to Apple’s iPhone saying that the Moorestown-based device could run constantly for 24 hours between charges.

AppleInsider reports that Apple is awaiting the official word from Intel that it can ship an update to its beefy Mac Pro workstation.

The new Mac Pro will feature Intel’s currently unreleased processor known as Penryn, it will represent the first upgrade to the Mac Pro since its inception in August 2006. The update will also push the Mac Pro to the forefront of computing as the Penryn-family of processors is based on Intel’s 45nm manufacturing process.

AppleInsider believes that the new Mac Pro will top out with an 8-Core model using two 3.2GHz “Harpertown” processors. The new Quad-core processors feature a 1600Mhz front-side bus as well as 12MB of L2 cache.

The rumour site believes that the lower-end Mac Pro models could recieve the dual-core Penryn processor know as “Wolfdale”.

The Inquirer reports citing sources in Tokyo that Apple has “pre-booked” all the top end Penryn processors for this year, leaving only “minimum quantities” for other manufacturers. The processors are widely expected to be used in Apple’s next-generation of Mac Pro workstations.

Penryn processors code-named ‘Harpertown’ are the successor to the processor currently used in the Mac Pro, the chips are based on Intel’s 45nm manufacturing die and feature a massive 1600MHz front side bus.

The rumour is reminiscent of one earlier this year in which Intel stated that it was supplying Apple will exclusive allotments of ‘Clovertown’ the Penryn predecessor. The 3GHz Quad-Core processors were featured in the Mac Pro several months ahead of other manufacturers.

Penryn is slated for release on November 11th of this year, but Apple will most likely have access prior to this release.

It has been revealed by Intel that the 3GHz Xeon processor used in the brand new 8-Core Mac Pro is an unannounced model.

Bill Kircos commented for Intel; “We are indeed shipping a 3.0GHz Xeon version [and] expect to see faster gigahertz speeds for our high-end Extreme PCs very soon, too. For now, the product is in limited production and Apple has chosen to adopt it. We will introduce another 3.0GHz Xeon SKU later on as well.”

The processor is currently exclusive to Apple.