Apparently this transition will take a while, but by 2015 people will apparently be saying that the mobile Atom chip is better than the Phenom II of three years ago. Sorry Bill, but we would bloody well hope so. Four years down the road with a shedload of development we hope tablets will be a little faster than the asthmatic ants carrying a heavy load of shopping. If they are as fast as a four year old PC chip we would think that is a little sad.
Leszinske was sharing Intel's road map with It Portal, saying Intel is the hottest silicon property at present. What is perhaps interesting is that it is the first time that Chipzilla has suggested that Ultrabooks, which it tips to be the next biggist thing, will come with anything other than Ivy Bridge-based Core 22nm processors. Leszinske also confirmed that by 2014, Intel will align all its products on 14nm.
The 14nm Atom is going to be called Airmont and will take over from the 22nm Silvermont which will be in the shops in 2013. The first 32nm Atom processors, codenamed Saltwell, are expected to come to market in September and kill off 45nm models. Intel promises that Intel's tablet CPU in 2015 will be at least 20 times faster than the N270. To do this it will have to make a steep rise in performance between 2012 and 2013.