Intel Demonstrates 'Moorestown' Mobile Platform

Intel demonstrated the world’s first working Moorestown platform at the 2008 Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Taipei, Taiwan. The demonstration was comprised of a validation board using three-day old Moorestown silicon.

Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group, spoke in his keynote at IDF about the Moorestown platform, scheduled for the 2009-2010 timeframe. Chandrasekher said that Intel was on track to reduce the idle power consumed by Moorestown by more than 10x compared to that of first-generation Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) using the Intel Atom processor. He also indicated that Moorestown platforms will support a range of wireless technologies including 3G, WiMax, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and mobile TV.

Although a working demonstration of the Moorestown platform was given, it does not seem as if a fully functioning Moorestown-based MID has yet become a reality. A conceptual Moorestown-based MID had been shown in the past by Intel, which seems somewhat familiar in design to Apple’s iPhone. There were functioning MIDs on display at IDF however, with photos of these devices popping up on Flickr. More announcements regarding the Moorestown platform are expected at the spring IDF in 2009.

The Moorestown platform is comprised of the System on Chip (SOC) codenamed Lincroft and the I/O hub codenamed Langwell. Lincroft combines a 45 nm processor, graphics solution, memory controller and video encode/decode onto a single chip. Moorestown is expected to be a catalyst for bringing the full Internet experience into the smartphone space.