Intel may have been inside in the past, but as far as the mobile revolution is concerned, the chip giant finds itself relatively outside of it. Intel processing solutions have been overly overtaken by ARM based SoCs in the past few years.
But the company is slowly finding its strength with newer Atom solutions (at least in the tablet realm) that promise much better power management to go with full x86 compatibility.
Several tablet makers, including Samsung, Lenovo and Acer, are targeting Intel’s Atom Bay Trail solutions for their Windows 8.1 tablets that should hit store shelves by the end of the year.
And now the guys over at DigiTimes have recently unearthed a leaked road map for upcoming Intel mobile platforms. The document details many of the solutions the chip maker is currently working on, which are slated for release in 2014 and 2015.
Things start with the 22nm Merrifield SoC — which is said to be targeting performance boost of around 50% while at the same time guaranteeing even better battery life.
On the processors front, the new Bay Trail-T processors for tablets will offer speeds between 1.8GHz and 2.4GHz, while also being compatible with both Windows 8.1 and Android 4.2. A Gen 7 GPU is also rumored to be in the pipeline and is expected to be launched soon.
2015 is expected to bring the Morganfield 14nm SoC.
Intel believes this to be a total game changer, along with the 14nm Willow Trail architecture for tablets. Android and Windows support will obviously be on offer.
But with 64-bit ARM solutions projected to be out by then, the mobile and tablet market promises to be a minefield of a battlefield for processor makers. End consumers, on the other hand, will luckily have a myriad of choices — which is rarely a bad thing.
