It feels like it's been a while since we've heard any major mobile news from Intel, but today the company has made some waves with the announcement of its new Silvermont microarchitecture. Intel says that a key focus of Silvermont is energy efficiency, as the tech is meant to be used with products like smartphones and tablets. Created using Intel's 22nm Tri-Gate system on a chip (SoC) manufacturing processo, the Silvermont microarchitecture is said to offer up to three times more peak performance over its current-gen Atom chips or five times lower power usage at the same performance.
So when will we start to see the Silvermont tech in consumer hardware? Intel says that Silvermont will be the basis of the "Bay Trail" system on a chip that'll begin showing up in tablets during the 2013 holiday season, as well as the new "Merrifield" SoC that's also scheduled to appear in smartphones.
Despite Intel's push to invade the mobile space with products like the ZTE Grand X IN and Motorola RAZR i, the company hasn't been able to grab much market share to date. Whether or not Silvermont will help to change that remains to be seen, but the new architecture shows that Intel is committed to mobile, and it'll be interesting to give its Bay Trail and Merrifield SoCs a go to see how they stack up against the competition. The full Silvermont announcement can be found at the Intel link below.
