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Apple's Mac chip supplier also plans to unveil eight more processors over the next three months which will include its first mobile quad-core products as well second-generation products for ultra-thin and light notebooks such as the MacBook Air.

The processor technology, formerly codenamed Montevina, is designed to improve upon every aspect of a laptop's key features, including performance, battery life and 802.11n WiFi.

The processors come with

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a faster, 1,066MHz front side bus and up to 6MB of L2 cache and three versions reduce laptop processor wattage about 30%, down to just 25 watts. Also featured is Deep Power Down Technology that turns off energy-sapping components such as core clocks and cache memory when the laptop is idle.

"When we first introduced Intel Centrino back in 2003, there were very few Wi-Fi hotspots, YouTube videos and social media didn't really exist, 'thin and light' only referred to weight goals and desktop PCs outsold notebooks by a very wide margin," said Mooly Eden, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the company's Mobile Platforms Group. "Today, notebooks outsell desktops in the U.S, and we're paving the way to HD entertainment, rich online gaming, faster broadband wireless speeds and an easier and more secure way for businesses to manage, update and repair their notebook fleets."

Intel is marketing the chips as Centrino 2, though Apple prefers not to use the Intel branding when deploying the same processors in its Macs.