Intel Centrino Platforms: Present and Future

7/7 - Intel's mobile CPUs currently use PGA (pin grid array) packaging, whereas the desktops use LGA, or land grid array.

Intel currently uses Socket M for its mobile CPUs. But Socket M is to eventually give way to Socket P.

When the mobile Core 2 Duo is released this August, it is to fit inside current Socket M Centrino motherboards. Owners of current generation Centrino laptops thus ought to be able to upgrade to the new chip. "Users should be able to use first-generation Merom processors in their current notebooks provided that their BIOS supports the new microcode".

However, before mobile Core 2 Duo (T series) launches, the desktop processors Core 2 Extreme and Core 2 Duo E series have to be released. The server launch of Intel's Core microarchitecture is already past.

The current generation Centrino platform is known as Napa. It uses a certain microprocessor (Core Duo), a certain chipset (the 945M or 945GM), and certain wireless technology. When the mobile Core 2 Duo is released in August, this shall be known as the Napa refresh.

After Napa comes a platform known as Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa shall use a Core 2 Duo processor, a chipset known as Crestline, and should support Robson technology, which is nonvolatile NAND Flash cache on the motherboard, sort of like hybrid hard drives, except that the NAND memory is not on the hard drive.

Core 2 Duo under Santa Rosa shall use a different socket, Socket P. Socket M shall give way to Socket P. The pin layout of Socket P shall be different from Socket M, so Core 2 Duo processors for Napa and Santa Rosa shall not be interchangable.

Crestline appears to be part of the 965 series of chipsets, the first of which series (the P965) has been released just recently.

The next generation Centrino platform, Santa Rosa, is due sometime in the first half of 2007.

Source: DailyTech.

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