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Intel confirms it is quietly shipping desktop, mobile, and server versions of its next-generation Pentium III processor, code-named Tualatin.

Tualatin is the first of a new family of Intel processors particularly well suited for mobile use because the processor generates less heat and consumes less power than previous chips. The main reason: Its manufacturing technique, which uses a 0.13 micron process technology. (The term refers to the dimension of circuits etched on the surface of chips.) Most of Intel's current processors are manufactured using a 0.18-micron process, which results in bigger and more power-hungry chips.

The new manufacturing process is not Tualatin's only distinction. The chip also boasts a new processor core, said Frank Spindler, general manager of Intel's mobile platforms group, at Intel's February developers forum briefing. Its technology comes from the existing mobile Pentium III, Intel has said.

Intel unveiled Tualatin at that developers forum. Emphasizing the chip's low power consumption, Intel showed a preproduction Dell notebook using a Tualatin CPU running at better than 1 GHz. At that time, Intel representatives said they expected to launch Tualatin chips in the second half of this year, first for mobile products and in other systems by the end of the year.

However, Tualatin will apparently appear first in servers, beginning "in the next 30 days or so," Intel spokesperson Otto Pijpker says.

An IBM representative confirms that Big Blue will be among the first vendors to market a Tualatin system, and that it will be a server. The company plans to release the Tualatin server next week, an IBM spokesperson says.

Compaq is also planning to use Tualatin CPUs in a line of ProLiant servers scheduled to ship by the end of the year.

Low-Power Competition Rises

The push for power efficiency in processors is a highly competitive effort. Intel faces some upstart competition from Transmeta, which markets its low-power Crusoe chip, targeting ultraportables and super-lightweight, thin mobile systems. Crusoe has also drawn interest from server vendors building systems for high-density environments.

Intel archrival AMD is making its own push into the mobile market with the Athlon 4, introduced in May. It, too, implements power-saving techniques, although AMD is not yet using the 0.13 micron manufacturing technique.

The server version of Tualatin runs at 1.13 GHz, has 512KB of Level 2 cache memory, and supports symmetric multiprocessing, according to a source familiar with Intel's plans. In Tualatin's case, the chip will be available in two-processor servers, the source says. Only Intel's Pentium III Xeon and 64-bit Itanium processor can be used in systems with more than two processors.

Intel actually has been quietly shipping Tualatin processors to system vendors since May, Pijpker says.

(Peggy Watt of PCWorld.com contributed to this report.)

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