Apple will Adopt Intel’s ultra-mobile PC platform

AppleInsider says sources indicate that Apple will soon be one of the biggest supporter’s of Intel’s new “Menlow” platform for Mobile internet Devices.

Apple specifically has been interested in the upcoming 45-nanometer (nm) “Silverthorne” chip, and apparently has agreed to use it in more than one product on it’s 2008 Roadmap.

Intended for release in early 2008, the “Silverthorne” chip is meant for use in cell phones, ultra-mobile PCs and other smaller mobile internet devices. The chip will sport the same speeds as the first generation Pentium M chips, but use between half a watt and 2 watts of electrical power. A typical notebook chip uses as much as ten times that power.

CEO Paul Otellini has compared the chip to the first generations of Pentium processors.

“The importance of the new Silverthorne chip is only comparable with the 8088 processor or Pentium,” he said in a June interview. Otellini added that the plan to bring out a whole product family of these chips is aimed at capturing the “top 10 to 20 percent of the cellphone market.”

While no one has explicitly stated this, it seems that the most likely candidates for this processor would be the 3G iPhone and a slate-like Tablet Mac.

Via [AppleInsider]