Intel provides glimpse of world's smallest PC motherboard

 

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By David Fearon in Shanghai

Posted on 2 Apr 2008 at 09:49

In a typical piece of IDF bravado, Intel has flashed an extremely brief but tantalising glimpse of the mobile processor and chipset that will replace the 2008 mobile platform.

The new platform - including the next generation of 45nm Silverthorne-derived mobile CPU - is codenamed Moorestown, and was revealed by the head of Intel's ultra-mobile group, Anand Chandrasekher.

For little more than 20 seconds right at the end of his IDF mobility keynote, a slide appeared showing a processor codenamed Langwell and a chipset package dubbed Lincroft. Both were apparently designed to be embedded into an extremely small motherboard that was also shown.

"I'm not going to talk any more about this today," said Chandrasekher. But he added that "the platform teams have been figuring out what's the smallest form factor you can fit a motherboard into," before holding aloft a tiny circuit board that he called "possibly the world's smallest PC motherboard".

And small it was. Absolutely tiny, in fact, looking roughly 5cm square. The board was clearly smaller even than VIA's already-shipping Pico-ITX boards, which integrate a complete PC into a board measuring roughly 10cm x 7cm.

But as fast as the miniature marvel appeared it was put away again, with Chandrasekher pledging to reveal more at IDF Fall in San Francisco this September.