Intel Cedar Trail moves to early 2012 release

Netbooks may have faced another crucial setback as Intel's Cedar Trail platform was moved back again. Once intended to arrive for end users in the fall, the next-generation Atom platform should now ship to partners in the fall but won't be in end user devices until 2012. Netbook and hybrid division marketing lead Cindy Ng suggested at the Intel Developer Forum that it was coming out of a pair of technology additions.

One of those will be the Rapid Start feature borrowed from ultrabooks, Ng said. The step lets a Windows system go from full hibernation mode to awake and on the web in seven seconds or less. Basic startup can happen in as little as three seconds. Ultrabooks will get the feature first and might be the reason for the delay, with systems like the Acer Aspire S3 and Lenovo IdeaPad U300s shipping in the fall.

Also coming was Smart Connect, a feature partly borrowed from Windows 8 that keeps web apps alive during sleep mode. It can periodically verify and update a service such as Twitter to keep them recent by the time the system resumes full use.

Cedar Trail is supposed to be integral to significantly faster and longer-lasting netbooks and low-end tablets. Most of its improvements will come from moving to the 32 nanometer manufacturing process of modern, full-size processors. Its absence in the holiday may see more sales going to iPads and other mobile tablets and a continued slump for netbook makers like Acer that haven't completely reduced their dependency on the low-end PCs. [via Netbook News]

By Electronista Staff