Intel goes Banias

Intel has gone some way to pleasing those who develop for its industry dominating chips platforms by fleshing out details of its Banias mobile processor architecture, due to find itself in laptops being shipped in the first half of next year.

The mantra from executives at this week's Intel Developer Forum has been simple: Banias will mean longer battery life, better CPU performance, wireless LAN connectivity and new device form factors, including the type of tablet PCs also being touted by Microsoft.

Though Banias won't be the first mobile processor architecture designed by Intel from the ground up (it's the second), it is the first in recent times and has been creating a buzz in several quarters.

The main criticism has been that details about pricing, speeds and product roadmap are being held back. However, a lot more is now known.

Processors in the Banias family will benefit from integrated 802.11a/b dual band WLAN technology - also known as Wi-Fi - allowing wireless networking at speeds of up to 54Mbps and 11Mbps respectively, less interference between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipsets, improved security and a Gigabit Ethernet controller optimised for mobile designs.

Intel will continue to ship mobile versions of its Pentium III and Pentium 4 chips in the near future but Anand Chandrasekher, VP Intel Mobile Platforms Group, said Banias will "target the whole of the mobile sector - over time".

Clive Longbottom, senior analyst at Quocirca, said: "As an architecture it makes a lot of sense and is in line with the move Intel is predicting towards convergence. There is real innovation in there, like the board level power control, and it will drive the laptop market."

However, there is a downside for the soon-to-be flagship mobile product. Longbottom pointed out that while desktop processors will soon benefit from something called hyper-threading, which gives chips a performance boost, Banias will not draw on the same technology, at least not initially. The result could mean superior mobile chips which still look scrawny - maybe even scrawnier, relatively - when compared to Intel desktop offerings.

"It might turn into a big marketing problem for them," Longbottom said.

There have also been concerns about how well operating systems will be able to take advantage of advances Banias brings, but a straw poll by silicon.com found most developers optimistic about the platform.