The latest reports by industry insiders reveal some interesting updates on the IALP/Atom roadmap.

The most important update is about a new code name, Medfield. It is the 2H/2010 32nm successor to Lincroft, part of the Moorestown platform. The interesting thing about this code is while Moorestown and the current Menlow platforms have a CPU + chipset, Medfield will be an all in one package.

Medfield will be offered in two variants, one with handheld level graphics, the other with netbook graphics. As per speculations, the netbook variant will usea version of the current Intel integrated GPU, and the handheld version will carry on with a PowerVR core.

In addition, Atom sales have the potential to open new markets. They are win-win package for the market.
Related to this, recently a update indicated that AMD can loose market on grounds of absence of netbook chips.

It seems that a few more pieces of info on Intel's roadmap for the 2008-2010 timeframe have leaked to the web and, although they have not been yet officially established as accurate, some sites already jumped on publishing articles on the matter. Looking at the chip manufacturer's already confirmed plans, the leaked information seems to be reliable enough, at least for what Intel has in mind at this moment, but no one can say for sure that changes will not appear in the future.An article published by PCWatch earlier showed a number of diagrams that presented some Nehalem breakdowns, and those interested in making a comparison between Lynnfield, Havendale, Westmere, and Bloomfield can take a look at them here. The diagrams we attached to this article give more information on Intel's roadmap until 2010, as well as some specs on the Atom processor.

Intel has already launched strong value parts on the market, and E7300 (2.6GHz Wolfdale, 3MB L2) is one of them, although is seems that its projection on the “Essential” is not too accurate. Q4 is stated to bring Bloomfield for the “Mainstream 3”, and this will be the only Nehalem to launch until Q2/Q3 2009, when a full flavored Core i7 lineup is expected to burst. The Core 2 will be pushed to the “Value 2” area at that time. The Core 2 Duo technology seems to go into the Celeron segment after that, and the Nehalem line will cover all the other areas. The new Atom processors set for launch in Q3 2008 are also present in the diagram.

According to the chart, the first half of 2010 will bring the six-core Westmere for the high-end segment of the market. The chip manufacturer seems to be planning the push of quad-core and hexa-core processors into the mass market, although there are few applications that would support this number of processors.
The Atom 330 will be launched in the next few weeks, while Atom 230 is already here. The new chips should come in 2009, but it remains to be seen whether Intel will have the single-core released before the dual-core model. The roadmap shows changes in the CPU's platform as well as an integrated GPU core, but it's not clear yet whether the GPU core will be integrated in the Atom or the company will go for a multi-die package.

Most likely, the new processors will also feature an integrated memory controller, given the fact that the boards use DMI and not the standard FSB. The chip manufacturer is suspected to opt for the use of an MCM package for Pinefield, with the CPU+IMC on one die, and the GPU core on the other. The MCH and the ICH are connected through the DMI link, making the FSB term unusable.

Hopefully, Atom will have a friendlier desktop chipset, one that will also fit its power consumption. Currently, both Atom 230 and the next-to-come Atom 330 work on the rather old 945GC platform, which needs more energy to operate than the Atom itself. The new processors will probably have higher clock speeds as well.

Forget any talk of shortages or competitive pressure from VIA, Intel's Atom processors are thriving amid the recent Netbook and Mobile Internet Device (MID) movement. "Atom is off to a very, very rapid start, far exceeding our expectations when we started the year," CFO Stacy Smith said in an interview Tuesday. "It's the perfect recession product to have in the marketplace."The success of its Atom processor has helped Intel achieve a 25 percent rise in quarterly profit despite a weak global economy, with Smith maintaining an overall revenue forecast in the third quarter between $10.0 and $10.6 billion.

Yields are good too. According to Smith, Intel gets about 2,500 Atom processors per silicon wafer, and while that's not quite as good as on a Core or Xeon chip, it's enough to ensure strong profitability on Atom CPUs. Still, Intel remains cautiously optimistic.

"We'll know kind of in six months how much of this demand (for Atom) is real and how much is customers thinking they're going to win in the market place and double-ordering," Smith said. "It seems to be growing the market rather than cannibalizing existing PC sales."

Will Intel's Atom chips continue to exceed expectations now that Centrino 2 platforms are starting to trickle out?

Intel’s dual-core Atom will see the light of the day in Q4 and is slated to be released on September 21, 2008, according to Fudzilla. It will be the first dual-core processor in the power efficient Atom family that has emerged as a popular powerplant for netbooks.The dual-core Atom 330 will set you back by $43, which is quite reasonable as the Atom 230 single-core processor is priced $29. The Atom 330 with its 1.6 GHz clock speed, 533 FSB and 1 MB L2 cache will be ideal for budget rigs. Once the Atom 330 release is out of the way, all eyes will be on the launch of 1.87 GHz Atom processors.

Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini had a bounce in his step going into his shareholder briefing on Tuesday. Intel’s continued dominance over AMD and a solid earnings report has left his investors glad they placed their money in hardware rather then software. Investors on the other hand are nothing if not fickle. The conference call quickly turned into a debate over the shortage of Atom processors and weakness in Intel’s flash memory business.Put on the defensive Paul Otellini hinted that Atom isn’t the chip maker’s primary focus. "(Atom) is less than a third the performance of our Centrino (processor). You're dealing with something that most of us wouldn't use," he said. He further goes on to clarify that Atom is aimed at the emerging Netbook audience and is a way that Intel can grow without cannibalizing its other processor offerings. He continued to reassure investors that Intel has plenty of Atom chips in stock and back end improvements to testing as well as increased production of chipsets should solve the problem. Intel has been steadily increasing its production capacity of the popular CPUs since November.

Atom is the brand name for Intel’s new low wattage x86 CPUs aimed at the Netbook and small consumer electronics market. Atom (code-named Silverthorne) is designed for a 45 nm process but will be revamped in 2009 to include a die shrink to 32 nm. Clock speeds for the CPU range from 800 MHz to 1.87 GHz and can be a single, or dual core design. Contrary to popular belief, Silverthorne was not specifically designed to compete with AMD’s Geode system on a chip used in the OLPC (One Laptop per Child). Rather, they will use the Diamondville platform running on the ultra low cost Mini-ITX motherboards to bring better performance and Hyperthreading to the game. Intel won’t be releasing a “system on a chip” design until its next generation of Atom processors code named “Lincroft” are launched sometime in 2009. Currently Intel’s main competition is with Nvidia’s Tegra processors which debuted in June 2008. Tegra sports pretty impressive performance but its use of the ARM RISC architecture puts it at a clear disadvantage against the popular x86 approach used in most home PC’s today.