Intel's Plans for Low-Power Chips

Cnet reports on Intel's road maps which were discussed at the Intel Developer's Forum today.

...the dominant theme revolves around reducing power consumption, a concept the company has hammered on since the beginning of the decade.

The newer architecture pushing the higher performance per watt appears to be targeted in late 2006. In the meanwhile, Intel has other chips coming to fill the gap in late 2005/early 2006.

Notebooks:
Yonah - notebook chip. 1st half of 2006.
Merom - notebook chip coming in the second half of 2006. 5 watts (vs 22 in today's chips)

Desktops:
Presler - Desktop chip based on Pentium 4 line. 1st half of 2006.
Conroe - Desktop counterpart to Merom. Late 2006. up to 65 watts. (vs 95)

Servers:
Paxville - late 2005. Dual core.
Woodcrest - Server processor, up to 80 watts. (vs 110)

The newly announced chips (Meron, Conroe and Woodcrest) aimed at late 2006 will utilize the new architecture (65-nm) to replace the aging Pentium 4 architecture. Apple anticipates their first Intel-based Macs to start shipping in 2006 and the transition to be complete by the end of 2007.