Intel celebrates Atom's first birthday

Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group at Intel, introduced the new processors for mobile internet devices (MIDs) during his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, and offered a live demonstration.

Chandrasekher expressed his delight at the feedback for the Atom processor, which the firm described as "wildly popular", and also showed off the new Z550 and Z515 models.

The Z550 extends performance to 2GHz with Intel Hyper-Threading support, while the Z515 features new Burst Performance Technology that lets the processor run at 1.2GHz when needed.

The new Atom-based Moorestown MID platform was shown in a side-by-side comparison with current Atom-based systems, demonstrating a greater than 10x idle power reduction.

Intel said that this is down to new power management tools and techniques. Moorestown comprises a system-on-a-chip, in this case called Lincroft, that incorporates a 45nm Atom processor core, graphics, video and memory controller, and a companion input/output hub codenamed Langwell.

The firm also announced the results of its Inspire Empower contest launched last year.

Four winners were awarded grants of US$100,000 to fund their innovative solutions, which included a system that turns a mobile phone camera into a handheld microscope.

"Nothing beats investing in good people and good ideas," said Intel chairman Craig Barrett handing out the awards. "Public-private collaboration is fundamental in driving solutions that confront global challenges."