Intel Unveils Merom Chip for Laptops

Intel formally announced its "Merom" chip for notebooks Monday, as vendors including Dell's Alienware, Gateway, and Toshiba America announced new models built around the processor.

Intel will use the chip to upgrade its keystone Centrino package of power-efficient, wireless-enabled technologies for laptop PCs, a bundle that combines the main central processing unit (CPU) with a mobile chip set and wireless card.

Merom is the third launch in recent months from Intel's new line of dual-core, 65-nanometer process chips built with the Core 2 Duo architecture. The company launched its "Woodcrest" Xeon 5100 chip for servers in June and its "Conroe" Core 2 Duo chip for desktops in July.

A laptop running the Core 2 Duo chip instead of Pentium M will offer twice the CPU performance while drawing 28 percent less electricity from the battery, said Dadi Perlmutter, senior vice president of Intel's Mobility Group.

Intel hopes the new Merom chip family will help stem its leak of market share to rival Advanced Micro Devices and AMD's dual-core Turion 64 X2 processor.

In worldwide sales of notebook processors, Intel has watched its market share drop from 87.6 percent in the first quarter of 2005 to 86.0 percent in the first quarter of 2006, according to Gartner. The fall has been steeper in the U.S., where Intel tumbled from 81 percent share during the month of June 2005 to 66 percent in June 2006, according to Current Analysis.

Product Plans

Since Intel began shipping the new Core 2 Duo chip to vendors last month, computer makers have come up with 200 notebook designs that specify the chip, including its placement in Intel's Viiv bundle for entertainment PCs.

Indeed, the Core 2 Duo chip will offer users improved multitasking power, media capabilities, and battery life, said Alienware, who will use the chip in three of its high-end gaming and media notebooks.

Alienware will use Core 2 Duo chips in the 17-inch Area-51 m5750, 15.4-inch Area-51 m5550, and 14.1-inch Sentia m3450.

Gateway will begin selling notebooks with Core 2 Duo chips on August 31, saying the new chip will speed data processing and overall efficiency for mobile business customers.

Gateway will use the chip in its M255-E, M285-E, M465-E and M685-E professional series notebooks, as well as its NX260X, NX560, NX860X, and CX210X consumer direct models.

Likewise, Toshiba announced it would use the new chip in its Qosmio G35-AV660, a multimedia notebook PC with an HD DVD-ROM drive and two 120GB hard drives for storing TV programs and music files. Adding the powerful new chip to the high-end features in this audio-video notebook model will boost processing performance for HD DVD playback as well as music, gaming, TV, video editing, and PC multitasking, said Jeff Barney, vice president of marketing for Toshiba's Digital Products division.

Despite that heavy computing load, the Core 2 Duo is still Intel's most energy-efficient dual-core performance mobile processor, conserving power resources while reducing fan noise and heat, he said.

That power efficiency capability could be reassuring to customers made nervous by recent reports of notebooks overheating and catching fire.

In the past month, Dell and Apple Computer have recalled a total of 5.9 million defective notebook batteries manufactured by Sony Energy Devices, with Apple advising users to plug their notebooks into AC outlets while they wait four to six weeks for replacements to arrive in the mail.

Intel is shipping five versions of the Merom Core 2 Duo chip, priced per chip in 1000-unit quantities at $637 for the 2.33-GHz T7600, $423 for the 2.16-GHz T7400, $294 for the 2.00-GHz T7200, $241 for the 1.83-GHz T5600, and $209 for the 1.66-GHz T5500.