Atom hits 2GHz

IDF Beijing | Intel may have scaled back its annual Beijing chipfest to a single day in light of the Dire Economic Times, but it still found a few things to talk about at today’s Intel Developer Forum. Here’s a quick summary of what they announced, and what it means to you.

Atom hits 2GHz

We knew a 2GHz version of the punchy little processor was on the way, but didn’t expect to see it surface until later this year. Intel senior veep Anand Chandrasekher announced the 2GHz Atom Z550 chip at this morning’s keynote, although it belongs to the Silverthorne family rather than the Diamondville N-series that powers most netbooks.

Like its Z-series siblings, the Z550 is intended for compact mobile Internet devices which have had minimal impact to date. We keep seeing the same models trotted out at every Intel event but have yet to see a single MID being used in the real world, unlike the wild popularity enjoyed by netbooks.

It’s true that some netbook vendors favour Silverthorne chips instead of the Diamondville N270 processor – Dell’s Inspiron Mini 12, the forthcoming Inspiron Mini 10 and Sony’s Vaio P series are among them – because the Z chips boast a physically smaller package and lower thermals, which can result in smaller and thinner netbooks.

However, we don’t see the 2GHz Z550 being planted into any of these netbooks soon. We’d actually hoped for the Diamondville line to hit 2GHz, but that still appears to some ways off.

Moorestown and Moblin Linux 2.0 set for 2010

Intel’s been vague on the delivery date for Moorestown, its second-gen Atom-based platform for MIDs and smartphones, nominating any time from late 2009 to the end of 2010 for touchdown. Today they reset expectations by promising Moorestown wouldn’t surface this year, although Chandrasekher showed off a prototype Moorestown device.

When Moorestown makes its debut it’ll be accompanied by “a new Moblin software version”. Given that the Intel-backed MID Linux distro is still sitting at 2.0 Alpha 2, this looks like at least a year-long wait until the final fresh-baked 2.0 release comes out of the oven.

Intel says that Mobil 2.0  will be “optimised to enable rich, interactive, PC-like Internet experience along with cellular voice capabilities”. Which of course is another confirmation that Moorestown has smartphones in its sights.

We didn’t hear about Intel’s ‘Ultra’ processor, which is the company’s solution for the new wave of ultra-thin laptops as well as its ultra-low voltage answer to AMD’s Neo; nor was there any more detail on Calpella, the sixth-gen Centrino tech set due before the year is out.

With Intel having cancelled its second 2009 IDF conference slated for Taiwan in November, we expect the next big news on both of these to break in time for the Computex Taiwan binary bacchanalia in early June. That’s not too long to wait, you know...