Samsung tight-lipped about UMPC's 'new' Intel CPU

Core 2 Duo ULV or 'Steeley'

By Tony Smith in Hannover • Get more from this author

15th March 2007 11:01 GMT

CeBIT Does Samsung's Q1 Ultra second-generation UMPC incorporate a new, as-yet-unannounced Intel mobile processor? Certainly, certain Samsung marketing material describes the CPU as a "UMPC Intel New Technology".

Others documents describe it as a "ultra-low voltage Intel processor", suggesting a Core product or, like the original Q1, a Celeron M chip. But there's no more beyond that - no clock speed, no cache details, no model number.

But neither is what we'd call "New Technology". So is the Q1 Ultra fitted with something new? It's tempting to wonder whether the Q1 Ultra is based on 'Steeley', the handheld-oriented mobile processor an Intel staffer made a passing reference to at Intel Developer Forum in September 2006.

Steeley is believed to be an x86-compatible alternative to the kind of ARM-based chips Intel was offering under the XScale brand until it sold that chip family off to Marvell last year. It's been a key Intel goal to produce a processor for handhelds that's capable of running Windows Vista, and the Q1 Ultra's spec suggests that the chip giant has met that target.

A more down-to-earth alternative is that the Q1 Ultra is powered by a ULV Core 2 Duo. The first of these, the 1.2GHz U7600 and the 1.06GHz U7500, are due to ship in Q2 - in time, it seems, for the Q1 Ultra to go on sale, as planned, in May. Unless Steeley is the Core 2 Duo ULV. If you know, feel free to put us in the picture.

All Samsung would admit is that the chip's one Intel has yet to ship. That's the reason why it can't yet put a price to the Q1 Ultra - Intel hasn't gone public on its own prices.