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Sandy Bridge Microarchitecture looks set to include Mobile CPU lineup
Reported by yantronic on Friday, April 16 2010 7:53 pm
We have been poking our noses in places we shouldn't have, sniffing for a successor to the Core i3/i5/i7 mobile processors. It does smell like Intel has something cooking in their research facilities.
Click for more sniff-ery inside.
Industry watchers who have been studying the Core i3/i5/i7 Mobile Processor lineup would already know that this range of processors are powered by Voltage Regulator Modules (VRMs) that conform to the Intel Mobile Voltage Positioning (IMVP) 6.5 standard. We already know from our Waimea Bay overview that the new Sandy Bridge microarchitecture will have a System Agent component not seen on the Nehalem microarchitecture, probably forcing the use of a new VR12 standard in the Highend Desktop (HEDT) platform.
We have been keeping tabs on quite a few power semiconductor solution providers in recent days. Guess what? Quite a few of the big players already have IMVP7 product lineups in the pipeline already. For example, Maxim's MAX17039's Evaluation Kit is already active and available. SGS-Thomson also has a family of IMVP7 compatible buck regulators designed to switch from battery power.
Both documents we've come across are rather dated, one being a 2008 Product Forecast and the other a 2009 Product Brief. For a 2011 mobile CPU lineup, it does look like everything is in proper cooking order.
We'd definitely keep our stomachs empty for whatever sandy gourmet that is about to arrive in a few more quarters.
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