The market statistics related to the first part of 2010 agree in indicating a stalemate for netbooks: Mini-PC at low price after the binge of 2009, they stopped suddenly. The reasons may be different but we believe that one key may be the unfulfilled expectation of faster, more powerful netbook. The new platform for Intel Netbook Pine Trail, in fact, improved space and power consumption but has not got one cue in terms of performance that many had hoped.
It follows that expectations have just got on the next wave of processors Pine View, on single-core Atom N455 and N475 with support for DDR3 memory, but especially on the first dual-core processor for Netbook, Atom N500 belonging to the family. This is a counter argument that keeps for months in an endless stream of rumors and confirmations.
The latest news coming from Fudzilla publishing a summary list of features and, finally, what appears to be a final processor number: the first dual-core Intel Atom N550 netbook will be called and will have a clock frequency of 1.5 GHz and 1MB second-level cache (512KB of L2 cache per core).
Is not the first dual-core Atom processor to be mounted on the netbooks, because they remind you that the Asus EeePC 1201N is equipped with an Atom 330 dual-core, but is definitely the first dual-core Atom CPU specifically designed for use on laptops.
It is not a trivial difference when analyzing the thermal profiles: the sources suggest that Atom N550 has a TDP of up to just 8.5 W, in absolute value than the Atom 330 8W low but decent considering that the CPU Pine View integrate the functions of the northbridge in the day.
Expect more details at Computex 2010.
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