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The first non-static "Santa Rosa" platform
ECS gives a glimpse into the future

When DailyTech stopped by ECS's Computex booth today, we found a notebook sitting by itself with no name tag or description whatsoever. We asked a few ECS reps if they had any inclination as to what was powering this mysterious 15.4" notebook, but no one knew its true identity -- that is until we grabbed an ECS Asia Pacific (APAC) Notebook Product Manager. He informed us that the nameless notebook was based on Intel’s upcoming Santa Rosa platform which replaces Napa.

Intel's Santa Rosa platform, which is due out in Q1 2007, supports Merom-based Core 2 Duo processors. Santa Rosa will also use a new wireless networking chip codenamed Kedron to replace the venerable Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG card. Kedron will be based on the 802.11n networking protocol and will be backwards compatible with 802.11a/b/g. The Santa Rosa platform will also feature Robson technology. Robson allows NAND flash memory to be used on the motherboard to cache critical OS system files. As a result, boot times are decreased 4-5 times that over current systems.

It should be interesting to see how much battery life and performance can be increased by using Robson technology in addition to flash-based hard drives as demonstrated by Samsung. The future is definitely looking bright for us mobile users out there.

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oops
By Scabies on 6/6/2006 1:26:55 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
As a result, boot times are increased 4-5 times that over current systems.


hmm.. so I have about 12 seconds now.. so this gets 50sec-1min?
a bit of rewording? boot speed increased 4 to 5x / boot time decreased by 75-80%?




RE: oops
By TomZ on 6/6/2006 1:34:33 PM , Rating: 2
I don't see why anyone would "boot" Windows in the first place. I always just use suspend which works great. I open the lid, my notebook is ready to use in a 1-2 seconds. Close the lid, it suspends. I only boot/reboot my laptop every couple months when I have to due to some software installation.


RE: oops
By TomZ on 6/6/2006 1:35:31 PM , Rating: 2
oops, typo "to due to some" -> "to do some"


RE: oops
By Jeff7181 on 6/6/2006 1:58:10 PM , Rating: 2
I just checked my laptop... it's been 27 days since a reboot.


RE: oops
By DEMO24 on 6/6/2006 2:33:02 PM , Rating: 2
sometimes laptops dont come out of suspend. Annoying when that happens


RE: oops
By joey2264 on 6/6/2006 2:52:55 PM , Rating: 2
I want your laptop!!! Seriously do you have a top of the line notebook or something? I use hibernate most of the time when I am transporting the notebook (It is not safe to use suspend as the notebook WILL GUARANTEED come out of suspend occaisionally, and if it is bouncing around in your backpack while it is on, woe be your hard drive and all your data). It takes nearly 30 seconds to come out of hibernate, and that is if everything works perfectly which happens about half the time. The other half, it is stuck waiting for up to another minute (90 seconds total) waiting at a blank screen


RE: oops
By TomZ on 6/6/2006 2:58:49 PM , Rating: 2
I have a 5-year old Thinkpad; nothing special. Maybe there is a bug in your power management driver? Maybe check for an updated version?


RE: oops
By suryad on 6/6/2006 6:06:18 PM , Rating: 2
My laptop comes out of Hibernate...and not standby since I Dont use standby....in about 8-10 seconds. However, I do shut down all apps I was using prior hibernating.


RE: oops
By Trisped on 6/6/2006 3:54:20 PM , Rating: 2
While suspend and hibernate are nice for power management and ease of use, there is still the issue of power drain in suspend and problems with some drivers/software developing bugs. If you aren't going to use the computer for a few hours you are better off shutting down. Boot/load time is annoying thought.


RE: oops
By TomZ on 6/6/2006 5:17:49 PM , Rating: 2
But if you have no problems with suspend/resume, then why not use it, especially if the laptop is plugged in? There's no point avoiding using a feature unless is it not working on your system, out of some fear of it failing. Obviously you wouldn't suspend with unsaved documents. All suspend is really saving is your general operating state, and therefore avoids boot time. If your suspend fails, then you have to reboot anyway, so nothing lost.


RE: oops
By kelmon on 6/7/2006 3:20:58 AM , Rating: 2
Ah, that's interesting to know. I was under the impression that Windows was the problem when Hibernating as the Dell Latutude I have from work takes ages to go into Hibernation, takes ages to "wake" again and then usually starts complaining that it doesn't have enough Virtual Memory after about 2 hibernations. In comparison my 3-year old PowerBook Ti performs much like you note with your laptop (1-2 second sleep/wake time and no memory problems afterwards) so I had thought that it was OS X that was the factor.


RE: oops
By KaPolski on 6/7/2006 6:32:15 AM , Rating: 2
You are wasting energy, that's why you should shut down. Killing the Earth we all live on :D


RE: oops
By TomZ on 6/7/2006 5:12:13 PM , Rating: 2
It's not wasting energy, any more than any other use of electricity. Standby mode saves me time and adds convenience.

When I use the microwave oven, I do that because it is faster than gathering wood and making a fire to heat my food. Would you also consider using a microwave oven wasting electricity?

I think maybe you've been brainwashed by the environmentalists into feeling guilty for everything you do, every bit of energy you use, if you are concerned about standby mode on a laptop.


RE: oops
By davegraham (blog) on 6/6/2006 1:57:40 PM , Rating: 2
should be "decreased 4-5 times..."

dave


Won't Robson run out of cycles?
By protosv on 6/6/2006 3:06:40 PM , Rating: 2
While Robson will provide faster boot times, isn't it true that NAND flash memory has a limited number of read/write cycles before sectors start to fail? Wouldn't an HDD, with its high number of read/writes only be able to effectively use the flash memory for a limited number of times before it becomse useless?




By epsilonparadox on 6/6/2006 3:21:41 PM , Rating: 2
If its just the OS on there, then it shouldn't matter unless you're constantly installing new OS.


RE: Won't Robson run out of cycles?
By TomZ on 6/6/2006 3:31:25 PM , Rating: 2
NAND flash typically has 100,000 write cycles, plus most of the time, a write-levelling algorithm is used to make sure that they are used evenly.

I'll bet the 100K number is just based on today's technologies and will improve going forward.


RE: Won't Robson run out of cycles?
By Phynaz on 6/6/2006 4:34:39 PM , Rating: 2
I think the 100,000 cycle number is old. If I recall it's in the millions now.


RE: Won't Robson run out of cycles?
By TomZ on 6/6/2006 4:42:28 PM , Rating: 2
Could be, but most references I saw talked about 100,000 cycles, e.g.,

http://www.kingston.com/ukroot/flash/flashenduranc...

I know that NOR flash commonly goes up to 1,000,000 cycles, however.


By retrospooty on 6/6/2006 6:46:25 PM , Rating: 2
Whats the difference... Lets assume you reload your OS 10x a day. If 100,000 writes is the rating, then your notebook's flash will last 27 years 100,000/365= 274/10= 27 years.


By DallasTexas on 6/6/2006 3:45:36 PM , Rating: 2
Good observation but a NAND controller (hardware) has ECC built in and a NAND file manager (installable) is able to do "wear-leveling" as implied above as well as block reallocation much like a HDD controller remaps bad sectors.

Also, faster boot is just one positive here. Faster application load, lower energy consumption and buffering will result in a significant platform level improvement. Super Intel technology here.


Running out of cycles
By tomcam on 6/8/2006 12:07:11 AM , Rating: 2
It's only READING the system files most of the time which shouldn't even count toward the total number of cycles.




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