Intel Unveils Power-Saving Processors

Intel introduced four new mobile chips this week for small notebooks that operate under severe power constraints, the company says in a release.

The three Low Voltage and Ultra Low Voltage Pentium M chips and one Ultra Low Voltage Celeron M chips use smaller amounts of electrical power than their regular Pentium M counterparts.

The Low Voltage chips consume a maximum of 10 watts of power, while the Ultra Low Voltage chips use only 5 watts of power, Intel says.

Power consumption is also a measure of heat dissipated by the processor. Regular Pentium M chips and Low Voltage Pentium M chips require some type of cooling mechanism to remove heat from the surface of the processor, but the Ultra Low Voltage chips can be used in ultraportable notebooks without a cooling fan because of their miserly power consumption.

At the Core

The three new Pentium M chips are all based on the Dothan core, Intel's code name for the processing engine behind its 90-nanometer Pentium M processors. These chips have twice the Level 2 cache of their Banias predecessors, with 2MB of storage as well as faster 400-MHz front-side bus.

Intel's new processor numbering system applies to the new chips. The Pentium M Low Voltage 738 processor runs at 1.4 GHz, the Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage 733 runs at 1.1 GHz, and the Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage 723 chip runs at 1 GHz. The new chips cost $284, $262, and $241, respectively, in quantities of 1000 units.

The Celeron M Ultra Low Voltage 353 processor runs at 900 MHz. Like all Celeron chips, it comes with a reduced amount of Level 2 cache but is otherwise based on the same architecture as its more powerful counterparts. This chip comes with 512KB of Level 2 cache and costs $161 in quantities of 1000 units.