DigiTimes is reporting on a new platform that Intel is developing, to be rolled out sometime in the second quarter of 2009. Their sources believe that it’s targeted at AMD’s Yukon platform.
This Consumer Ultra Low Voltage (CULV) platform is a good indicator of Intel’s plans on breaking up the laptop market into four distinct segments:
– Traditional laptops (normal laptop CPUs, storage, RAM, etc.
– What DigiTimes refers to as ultraportables – 11″ to 13″ displays.
– Netbooks (Atom/Pineview/Menlow)
– MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) (UMPCs, some 4″ – 7″ devices) (Menlow)
This CULV platform would be targeted at the ultraportable segment – devices that are priced above netbooks and that would have better performance than typical netbooks. DigiTimes mentions that the top-three vendors have products planned around the new platform and that up to 10 million of these products could be shipped in 2009. Hewlett-Packard is singled out as having had plans to expand the Mini-Note line later in June with a 13.3″ Atom-based laptop, but changed those plans to use the CULV platform instead.
AMD had planned on skipping the “race to the bottom” as some call it, and ignoring the low-end/cheaper netbooks, and instead creating the Consesus/Yukon platform to compete in the market segment that Intel is targeting with the CULV. AMD wants to bring a “full-fledged PC experience” to the $699 and above ultraportables.
Read: DigiTimes