Intel to Formally Announce 'Silvermont' Micro-Architecture

By Tarun Iyer
published

“Silvermont” is Intel’s first major redesign of the company’s Atom processors since its launch five years ago.

On May 6, 2013 Intel will be formally introducing its new Atom “Silvermont” micro-architecture that will power the company’s next-generation “Bay Trail” and “Merrifield” mobile processors. As one might expect, Intel’s new Atom processors are a far cry from the ultra low-power processors that arrived in Netbooks in 2008 and will feature a “higher-performance out-of-order design” and integrate up to four processing cores based on the company’s 22 nm 3D transistor design.

The chips will also feature a faster integrated graphics, and according to the slide featured above, be just as battery-friendly as current Atom processors. These aspects should provide ARM vendors such as Qualcomm and Nvidia with some much needed competition. We’ve already heard that both Acer and Asus are in the process of developing laptops and hybrid tablets that will utilize Atom processors and run on Android.

Following the official launch on May 6, “Bay Trail” powered devices are expected to arrive in time for 2013’s holiday season with “Merrifield” based devices following “early next year.”

Tarun Iyer
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • burnley14
    I didn't realize the last refresh was so long ago until the article said 2008. Jeez Intel, what took so long?
    Reply
  • scook9
    It was not a refresh in 2008, it was the product introduction. And what took so long was they had no competition or pressure until the mobile boom that happened in 2010-2011 and really not until 2011 and the tablets did they start to feel any heat.
    Reply
  • murzar
    I hope this turns them from 'not bad' to 'pretty good'. I have an asus netbook with cedar trail with win 7. It works, just works (with awesome battery life for long journeys though).
    Reply
  • de5_Roy
    what does gen 7 gfx mean? with dx11 support, it kinda looks like hd2500/4000 igp in 'core' cpus.
    Reply
  • silverblue
    I can imagine that the new Atom could be a very close competitor for Jaguar. However, with clock speeds going up to 2.1GHz and a dual channel memory architecture, Intel might even have the lead here.
    Reply
  • GreaseMonkey_62
    10747956 said:
    I can imagine that the new Atom could be a very close competitor for Jaguar. However, with clock speeds going up to 2.1GHz and a dual channel memory architecture, Intel might even have the lead here.
    Indeed. AMD's APU's clearly dominate Intel's graphics, but if they don't seriously step up the CPU side especially for the Z series it won't matter.
    Reply
  • shadowfamicom
    I have had and Intel Atom D2700 2.13ghz (2 cores + 2 threads), running in a book sized computer non-stop for my media server/network storage for over a year. Very impressed with it.
    Reply
  • somebodyspecial
    To save me from typing it again here's a paste of the last time you posted this crap the other day.

    This slide is months old, and it doesn't say the tablets will be available, just the chips will be flowing. Big difference here. I'll be surprised to see this before Q1. According to Intel slides it only goes into QA in Q4 so how the heck can it get into a device by then? I wish toms would stop quoting old crap calling it new. I refuted this slide ages ago elsewhere.
    http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/intel-atom-bay-trail/
    In Jan this slide was out...I'd have to dig a bit to find the Q4 QA crap but it was clear from their own info this won't make it into 2013 products.

    http://www.dailytech.com/Leaked+Intel+Atom+Roadmap+Suggests+22+nm+Smartphone+Chip+Delayed+Till+2014/article29545.htm
    But here, this shows it, productions in Q4'13 or Q1, that means NOT A PRODUCT. Get it?

    AFter looking again, Nov-Jan 14 production, it will be lucky to make it into a Q1 product.

    To date google has had the fastest chip received->product intro (4.5mo I think), so no Q1 crap for this chip unless Intel pulls off a miracle which from Jan data, this can't be done. Even if they hit Early Nov (instead of Jan), you can't get a product made with it for another 4.5mo or more. So Q2 products if manufacturing in Nov-Jan. If it's Jan this will be LATE Q2 products.
    Nuff said.

    Those were posts correcting this data:
    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Intel-Bay-Trail-Tablet-Atom,22304.html
    Why I'm helping you get hits for crap data that was posted months ago is beyond me, but whatever. Until I see a slide that says shipping next month instead of manufacturing in Nov-Jan14 you are full of crap. You have to be shipping product in the next 2 months to make it in time for xmas stuff. I'd say July at the latest or you don't give a manufacturer time to get a product ready and they go with someone else (much like T4 missed nexus 7rev2 as S600 was SHIPPING! See the point?).

    Posting engine seems to ignore CR's now? Edited to space it out as intended.
    Reply