Intel, AMD, ARM Unveil New Chips, Designs at Computex

by Jeffrey Burt

Intel officials have been touting Haswell for months, talking about its improved performance, graphics and power efficiency. The SoCs not only will power traditional notebooks, but also new form factors such as Ultrabooks, convertibles, hybrids and two-in-one devices that can be used as both a laptop and tablet.

This is a shot of a quad-core fourth-generation Core chip, which is part of a larger wave of mobile products coming from Intel this year. Later in 2013, Intel will introduce low-power Atom chips based on the new “Silvermont” microarchitecture.

Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group, shows off a thin, light two-in-one Ultrabook from Dell powered by Haswell chips, which will hit the market later this year.

Dell officials introduced the XPS 11 Ultrabook, a Windows 8 convertible laptop that can easily become a tablet with a flip of its 11.6-inch display.

Included in the new Haswell-based systems is the Envy Rove 20, an all-in-one device that can be used in an upright position or completely horizontal in a table-top fashion. The Envy Rove 20 and other systems were announced in May.

Acer officials announced that they were putting Haswell into a number of systems, including the Aspire S7 Ultrabook (pictured), Aspire S3 Ultrabook and the Aspire Z3 all-in-one.

Company officials call the Transformer Book Trio, which can be used as a desktop PC, a notebook or a tablet. In addition, the system contains both a Haswell chip and an Atom SoC, so it can run either Android or Windows 8.

Panasonic’s fourth-generation Core chip system is an Ultrabook.

The Vaio Duo 13 is the successor to the company’s year-old Duo 11, with a revamped look, improved hinge and improved keyboard, according to reviewers.

The Ultrabook is the first business laptop from the company to offer Microsoft’s Windows 8 OS.

HP’s Pavilion 14 TouchSmart Sleekbook is powered by AMD’s A-Series chips.

AMD officials at Computex announced their Elite A-Series chips for desktops, while also touting other mobile chips—Kabini and Temash—released in May for notebooks, tablets and other form factors. The officials highlighted systems powered by the mobile chips.

Acer officials tout the Aspire V3 Series systems for their performance and graphics capabilities.

ARM already offers SoC designs for high-end and entry-level phones. With the Cortex-A12, the company now will have the midrange covered. ARM officials expect devices with Cortex-A12-based chips in them to start hitting the market in early 2012.

Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 400 comes with four cores and integrated 3G/4G capabilities.

At Computex, Tom Kilroy, executive vice president for Intel, shows a smartphone reference design platform based on the company’s next-generation 22-nanometer Atom SoC for smartphones, dubbed “Merrifield.”

Hermann Eul, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobile Communications Group (left), was joined on stage by Asus CEO Jerry Shen, who showed off Asus’ FonePad, a tablet that offers full smartphone capabilities and runs on Intel’s Atom Z2580 SoC.