Intel Developer Forum Fall 2003 - Day 2: All About Mobile

Sonoma - DDR2 for Centrino

We also got an update on the next generation platform for the Pentium-M, codenamed Sonoma. Planned for launch sometime in the second half of 2004, the Sonoma platform is made up of the Alviso chipset, Intel's Azalia sound hardware, PCI Express, SATA, and a new graphics core (the same graphics used in Grantsdale).

Azalia has the ability to deliver dolby 7.1 sound, while also reducing power consumption by approximately 50% over current generation AC'97 hardware.

The addition of PCI Express includes the use of the next generation expansion card technology called ExpressCard, which is much smaller in size than current cardbus expansion modules.

Intel did announce that Sonoma would use DDR2, much like the Grantsdale line of desktop chipsets. No decisions have been made as to whether DDR2-400 or DDR2-533 would be used however.

This platform will be built around the just announced Dothan version of the Pentium M. We will continue to look into this technology as the day wears on and if we find anymore information, we'll keep you posted.

Along with Sonoma, other next generation technologies we were shown include a feature that tracks where the users eyes are facing and turns off the display as necessary, the ability to locate yourself in a city via the wireless access point you are connected to, and moving through different wireless networks without interrupting a file transfer. Of course, most of these are almost necessary for the average user to adopt mobile technology on the scale that Intel wants, so we see these this as a definite step in the right direction.