Intel plans to launch the second generation of its Centrino mobile processor platform at a Jan. 19 event at the San Francisco. The new platform, code-named Sonoma, will include a new version of Intel's Pentium M mobile processor, a new wireless chip, as well as a new chipset, which Intel says will have double the graphics performance of its current products.
At the heart of the platform will be a new generation of Intel's Pentium M processor, code-named Dothan, which will have slightly faster clock speeds ranging up to 2.13GHz, and as much as 2M bytes of on-chip memory. The fastest of these new processors, called the Pentium M 770, will be priced in the same range as Intel's current top-of-the-line 2.1GHz Pentium M 765.
The most interesting developments in Sonoma, however, relate to the platform's new "Alviso" chipset and its frontside bus architecture, which connects the chipset to the processor. Alviso will have a 533MHz frontside bus, which means that the processor will be able to communicate with other components of the chipset much faster than it does in the current crop of 400MHz frontside bus systems.
Sonoma will support Intel's PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Express standard and DDR 2 (Double Data Rate 2) memory for the first time, and will include a new wireless networking chipset, called the Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG network connection, which will support the 802.11a/b/g wireless standards.
Though the first generation of Centrino products were able to radically extend the battery life of notebook systems, the Sonoma line focuses on performance rather than power consumption