The technology behind the majority of laptops in 2010: Intel showcases Arrandale

Intel's latest chip roadmap pertaining to laptops is rather interesting. In 2010, notebook consumers will be faced with three Intel technologies that are differentiated by usage pattern.

At the lower-end of the market, Intel will continue to drive the netbook with a compacted Atom offering known as the Pine Trial platform. It will reduce the manufacturer's bill of material cost by integrating the graphics portion alongside the CPU, in the same package. Appreciating this, we expect to see an influx of sub-$300 netbooks saturating the market.

At the upper echelons of mobile computing Intel is migrating the Core 2 Quad architecture to Nehalem-based chips, formally announced at this year's Intel Developer Forum as Mobile Core i7

The mainstay of the 2010 notebook business will still reside with mid-priced laptops powered by what is codenamed the Arrandale core.

Arrandale takes in the 32nm Westmere architecture and leverages it with a dual-core, four-threaded CPU that's paired with an improved GPU. The difference from previous generations is that the CPU and GPU are integrated on the same package. This should lead to cheaper, thinner laptops imbued with decent processing power on all fronts.

Ostensibly a scaled-down version of the desktop Clarkdale CPU/GPU, which we reviewed here, Arrandale is slated to arrive in Q1 2010, according to the latest mutterings from IDF.

Intel showcased the Arrandale chip, likely to be productised as Core i3, at this year's IDF show. What you see is the chip mounted on to a mini-ITX motherboard. The platform will go by the name Calpella. CPU-level integration means that the accompanying core-logic needs only house the communications-heavy southbridge and output ports.

Arrandale is important because it will be the backbone of the majority of Intel-powered notebooks in 2009. If desktop Clarkdale performance is anything to go by, Intel will have a worthy standard-bearer for the current Centrino 2 platform.