On Wednesday, Intel will formally unveil details of its desktop Springdale chipset, as well as the mobile Banias platforms that will officially launch next month.
Intel senior executives also declined to comment on the LaGrande security technology that Intel president Paul Otellini discussed a year ago. Lower-level officials hastily filled in some details to avert the perception that the technology had been scrapped, however.
Intels Springdale chipset, due by the middle of the year, will include an 800-MHz front-side bus and support dual channel DDR memory, according to Louis Burns, vice-president and general manager of Intels Desktop Products Group.
“We believe strongly that the client is moving to dual channel memory,” Burns said.
The newest feature of Springdale is a type of software-driven RAID, which Burns did not explain. A version of the chipset will integrate Intels “Extreme Graphics” integrated graphics core and Serial ATA.
Wednesday will also bring more details of the Banias platform, which will launch on March 12 in New York City. Centrinos Banias processor will launch at speeds of up to 1.6-GHz, and the accompanying Odem/Intel 855 chipset will support up to 2 Gbytes of DDR266 DRAM, include a second-generation Extreme Graphics core, Burns said.
Curiously, Burns declined to comment on the LaGrande security technology, described by Otellini as providing “a safer computing environment,” according to Otellinis speech last year. Burns said there was a need for a more secure computing platform, but that he would not provide any additional architectural details.
However, other executives said LaGrande was alive and well. Jeff McCrea, vice president and director of Intels Corporate Client Demand group, confirmed that LaGrande technology would be built into the Prescott processor. However, just as Intels hyperthreading technology was installed but not enabled in some Pentium 4 cores, so too will LaGrande show up in the “Prescott generation”, McCrea said, which could span several years.
Part of the responsibility for bringing LaGrande to market falls on Microsoft, said Mike Fister, vice-president and general manager of Intels Enterprise Platforms Group. “Go and ask your Microsoft colleagues about that,” Fister advised, who said Microsofts security initiative, believed to fall under the companys Palladium initiative, was still in the planning stages.