Intel Centrino Duo: new-generation mobility
Mobile Intel 945 Express chipset family
The new generation of "mobile" Mobile
Intel 945 Express chipset for use in combination with
Intel Core Duo/Solo processors has come as a replacement to the Mobile
Intel 915 Express series and was known during the development of the
Napa platform under the Calistoga working
name.
These days, the family of new chipsets includes two
versions of the north bridge – the discrete Mobile
Intel 945PM Express and integrated Mobile
Intel 945GM Express. The chipsets are equipped with the
mobile version of the south bridge- ICH7-M
and appear to be improved, modified and economical versions of Intel
945G/P presented in May last year for desktop PCs.
The new generation of mobile chipsets offers the system
bus optimized for power-consumption, running at 667 MHz, support for
the PCI Express x16 and up to 4 GB 2-channel DDR2 400/533/667 memory.
The chipsets offer power management tools - Intel Rapid
Memory Power Management, which allow saving the power
consumed by the chipset and DIMM DDR2 modules through switching the
memory to the state of reduced power consumption with the display
staying active.
We should also mention the Intel Display
Power Saving 2.0 technology that reduces the display
backlight power consumption with the minimum visual effect to the user,
which allows elongating the time of offline battery operation; the Intel
Automatic Display Brightness technology which
automatically adjusts the display backlight intensity as per the
ambient illumination level; the Intel Matrix Storage
technology with the Link Power Management
feature that allows to boost performance, manage the power consumption
and protect data in data storage subsystems.
The 4-pipeline graphic core Intel Graphics Media
Accelerator 950 (GMA 950) integrated into
the Intel 945GM chipset is a the Gen 3.5 generation of Intel graphics
and supports DirectX 9. The clock speed of GMA 950 chip has been raised
from 200 MHz in Intel 915GM to 250 MHz in Intel 945GM, plus the
hardware support for VLD/iDCT has been added.
Additionally, of note is support for the Intermediate
Z that eliminates polygons displayed in 3D applications;
a full-featured MPEG-2 (SD & HD) decoding; support for
D-connectors of all types (D1-D5) and any TV-sets, including HDTV;
adaptive line scanning management that removes some visual artifacts
while watching on-air TV on non-interlaced scanning displays, as well
as the COPP/HDCP/CGMS-A technology which allows viewing protected
high-quality video with the content copy-protected.
Along with the above listed, the Mobile Intel 945
Express chipset offers support for 7.1-channel Intel High Definition
Audio at 32-bit/192 KHz bit-rate; up to USB 2.0 ports. There is the DMI
(Direct Media Interface), the LVDS interface, integrated
TV-out, independent outputs to two displays (Dual
Independent Display), support for Serial ATA storage media.
It is expected that in the second quarter presented will
be value versions of the Mobile Intel 945 Express chipsets - Intel
945GMZ, Intel 945GMS, and Intel 940GML. Intel 945GMS
is remarkable for its super-compact packaging – merely 27x27
mm, which determines its use in ultra-compact notebooks and
mini-notebook models. Intel 945GMZ is a
cut-down version of Intel 945GM and lacks support for the PCI Express
x16 bus. Finally, the Intel 940GML with
integrated graphics and support for FSB at merely 533 MHz is evidently
aimed at operation with chips of the Celeron class, but this time based
on Yonah cores.
A few words on further prospects for progress of mobile
south bridges of the ICH7 series. All the notebooks, as was already
stated above, will be equipped with the standard ICH7-M series, while
solutions for the desktop platform Viiv will be shipped with both the
ICH7-M version and with the ICH7-MDH
version which offers additional support for six PCI Express x1 slots
and the RAID feature. It's quite possible that support for RAID will be
also implemented in the Napa platform, say, in the second-third quarter
of 2006.
Wi-Fi in the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG version
The new-generation wireless network adapter Intel
PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, formerly named as Golan
(working name) supports extended functional characteristics which
improve the communication capabilities of application systems and
reducing their response times. The adapter offers support for
IEEE802.11a (5 GHz/54 Mbit/s), IEEE802.11b (2.4 GHz/11 Mbit/s) and
IEEE802.11g (2.4 GHz/54 Mbit/s).
Among the key characteristics of Intel PRO/Wireless
3945ABG, the following are worth mentioning:
- Improved AP Selection,
which is an intelligent means for access-point selection based on the
connection quality parameters like signal level, data transmission
rate, channels usage and connection errors, which also allows
automatically selecting the access-point to provide the best
performance when using any of the supported protocols of 802.11x family
- Flexible roaming - the
possibility to point to the need for using a certain access point. For
example, there can be selected an access point of higher connection
speed, if an additional bandwidth is needed when loading large files or
data of higher signal level, if a more stable connection is needed
(e.g. during a game)
- Support for 802.11e QoS
- the most recent 802.11e specification
that regulates the service quality in wireless networks during content
transmission, e.g. voice transmission over IP-networks (VoIP)
or when viewing video streaming via a wireless connection
- Intel PROSet/Wireless Software
version 10 software is a friendly GUI that simplifies
troubleshooting
- Business Class Wireless Suite
allows to use new applications for cooperation and provides the grounds
for building high-performance wireless LANs
- Wake on Wireless Local Area Network (WoWLAN)
allows the IT personnel to bring the client system from the reduced
power consumption state if the system is connected to the same access
point and install a software update which is critical to provide
security, as well as notify of the incoming IP-telephone call even if
the notebook is powered off
- Noise suppression filter
detects signals from other clients not meeting the 802.11 standards
(e.g., a microwave or a radio phone) and protects the receiver against
operation in the overload mode, which allows maintaining a high
bandwidth under unfavorable conditions
- Support for Cisco Compatible
Extensions (LEAP, EAP-FAST, and CKIP)
- Supported by Windows XP, Windows 2000, Linux
The Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Wi-Fi adapter is produced
in the mini-card form factor for the PCIe bus (PCI Express x1, 1/2 mPCI
format), which allows creating thin and light notebooks. Due to the
possibility to use Intel PROSet/Wireless version 10, corporate
customers can leverage the new IT administration tool and API interface
which is meant to provide quality of service (QoS) as per 802.11e for
IP-telephony.
Performance and economy of the Intel Centrino Duo
platform
Having sorted out with components of the Intel Centrino
Duo platform, it's high time we estimated its capabilities.
Unfortunately, at the moment our test lab hasn't got the test results
for a real system running on the base of the Napa platform, and we'll
have to restrict to a few slides produced in the course of system tests
run at the Intel laboratory. It was just these graphs based on which
the company's official press release reported "performance boost up to
68 due to the use of new 2-core processors, elongation of the offline
battery-powered operation by up to 28%", etc. For now, there is only
official data, but in the near future we will definitely please our
readers with tests of real retail systems.
The final touch in describing the Intel Centrino Duo
technology is a collection of information on the power consumption of
new-generation mobile systems. According to the preliminary information
of Intel's OEM partners, the overall power consumption of Napa-based
systems is lower than that of the previous Sonoma generation. The below
table shows the average (not peak, maximum, but average) power
consumption of Intel Core Duo platform for comparison versus similar
characteristics of the Sonoma platform.
|
Approximate
power consumption for components of
Sonoma and Napa mobile platforms
|
|
|
Sonoma
|
Napa
|
| Processor |
1.1
W |
1.1
W |
| North bridge of the chipset |
Integr.
(GM) |
1.5
W |
1
W |
| Discrete
(PM) |
1 W |
0.39
W |
| South
bridge |
1.5
W |
0.6
W |
| Wireless
LAN |
0.1
W |
0.055
W |
| Total |
4.2
W |
2.8
W |
With similar power consumption of Core Duo and Dothan
chips, note how the power consumption by Intel 945GM and Intel 945PM
chipsets have gone down as compared to the predecessors Intel 915GM and
Intel 915M. Therefore, with the twice as less power consumption of the
wireless adapter and south bridge the average power consumption for
Napa platform components has dropped to 2.8 W versus 4.2W in Sonoma.
The balanced choice of an economical display, storage media and other
"voracious" notebook components will definitely let the developers
achieve new records at the time of offline battery operation for
Napa-based systems.
As a bright example of model based on Intel Centrino
Duo, I am bringing in the recently presented Dell Inspiron 9400
notebook which will hit the retail by the end of January. The novelty
is equipped with a Core Duo T2500 processor of 2 GHz clock speed, Intel
945PM Express, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 Go graphics of 256 MB graphic
memory, 2 GB RAM, a 100 GB HDD, as well as a luxurious 17" 1920
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