backtop

Print E-mail del.icio.us 9 comment(s) - last by Anemone.. on Mar 12 at 8:29 AM
Crestline, Robson, and Merom - Intel is bringing together a host of technologies for Santa Rosa, its next gen platform

Merom, Intel's next-generation is slated for release at the end of 2006. Interestingly, Yonah is still pretty young but the next-generation beyond Yonah is already well under way. What follows Merom's release however, is definitely interesting and in a very serious way, compliments the new architectures to enable such features as instant-on and instant-off. Intel is pushing these technologies as part of its Viiv platform, and while we will see a lot of the neat technologies appear on mobile systems first, plans are underway to bring the same technologies to the desktop.

After Intel's Napa paltform, Santa Rosa is next for Intel along with the release of Crestline, Intel's next-generation mobile chipset. Crestline will bring along new features that utilize NAND flash memory. Intel says the technology, called Robson, is incorporated with Crestline (as part of the Santa Rosa platform) and allows critical OS systems to be cached to the non volatile memory. This way, the NAND memory will be used as a boot drive and may be able to include common applications as well.

Intel demonstrated Robson using OS boot times and application loads. The demonstration took place on a NAND enabled system and one without, and in many cases the one with Robson showed 4 to 5 times the performance of a legacy system. For mobility users, Intel also says that using NAND flash technology, battery power will be preserved because there is a higher performance-per-watt ratio on a NAND-enabled system vs. a legacy HDD-only based system. Intel also recently invested heavily into Micron, to create a new joint venture on producing NAND flash memory and NAND based products.

According to Intel, Robson-enabled notebooks and desktops will start to see the light in early 2007. While Crestline, and Merom will not be launching all together, Intel promises a culmination of all the above technologies in Santa Rosa.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Instant-On
By OddTSi on 3/8/2006 1:56:56 PM , Rating: 2
While the instant-on doesn't really matter much for my desktop (not saying I wouldn't like it, just saying I don't need it) it would do wonders for the HTPC market. No more having to leave the HTPC on all the time just so that it's ready within a few seconds when you need to use it.




RE: Instant-On
By ahock on 3/8/2006 3:28:57 PM , Rating: 2
we know Robson is an Intel technology, Is AMD platform allowed to used it?


RE: Instant-On
By JackPack on 3/8/2006 4:58:31 PM , Rating: 2
Sure, but AMD needs to develop it first. I assume that there are charges to the southbridge.

Since AMD is not a company that develops the platform, it'll fall the shoulders of those who design AMD mobile southbridge.


RE: Instant-On
By ahock on 3/8/2006 5:42:09 PM , Rating: 2
Is it on the southbridge?? or another add on card that fits in pci express? Honestly in my opinion, PC makes rely heavily to Intel in innovating their products. Intel cannot do it alone since they are chip company. Take for example Apple..... They are the one innovating their own computer that really fits the consumer. Its just my opinion.


RE: Instant-On
By rudreshsj on 3/8/2006 7:11:05 PM , Rating: 2
does instant on have something to do with loading the OS onto the NAND flash which is quite similar to the gigabyte I-ram drive but only faster?


RE: Instant-On
By JackPack on 3/8/2006 10:15:05 PM , Rating: 2
I don't think there are standards in place for booting off of the Robson PCIe module, so I suspect changes will be necessary on the southbridge.


new Intel technologies
By crystal clear on 3/9/2006 2:11:17 AM , Rating: 2
I comment on this article as a end user only-till we see these technologies translated into real useable products is a long wait.Add to this vista operating systems that will use these technologies/products plus other things that will come along,its 2007/2008.For computer professionals its all news news but for the rest its make do with whats available in the market- I mean the best & for now its Amd.Who can predict what/where these technologies end up- long hard work ahead for Intel, nothing comes easy.Wait & watch is the policy.




Stupid tecnology?
By MrKaz on 3/9/2006 7:38:05 AM , Rating: 2
I reboot my system 1/2 times a day maximum.

I mean why increase boot time speeds?
Besides, on notebooks i always hibernate them.




By Anemone on 3/12/2006 8:29:50 AM , Rating: 2
Ok this is kind of ridiculous. You could be incorporating part of this technology into the hardrives themselves, as they do now with ram buffers.

Secondly it's not like this is horrifically hard to add to a chipset. Why is it going to take till 2007? Notebooks are notoriously slow in the hardrive arena, and areas to help them in that without driving up power useage would be welcomed by millions. It's not like NAND is hard to get. Vista is going to implement this technology just using USB flash so it's quite doable in other ways than a brand new chipset. And you could upgrade it too, just make it a module you could replace like a SODIMM, so that if 1gb is good for me now, I could bring it to 8gb when the price is better. (numbers just for illustration)
So why not add it to Napa? Why not have the hardrives add a slot to their machines we could plug in a 512mb flash card in their drive too for lookup tables and the like? I do realize that we need Vista to get this thing full circle, but it feels like planned product introduction to say this technology will take almost a year to bring to market. That smells of Intel wanting anything to make next year's chipset sell when it would be perfectly easy to have it in this year's chipset.
But hey, we're only the consumers. Having a sales demo load in 5 sec vs 30sec isn't really something that would make anyone any money right? Heck we can wait a year for that right? Sure. Why bother making it available now? No need right?

Sure...




"DailyTech is the best kept secret on the Internet." -- Larry Barber

DailyTech Poll
Which web browser do you use on your primary personal machine? 






44 Comments







botimage
Copyright 2009 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki