Intel Leverages on Broadcom HD Graphics Chip for its Pine Trail Atom Processor

We just mentioned about the Pine Trail confirmation that going to be a replacement of Intel famous N-series Atom processor, now seems that more information is available on the next generation processor. According to reliable source, the giant chipmaker is collaborating with Broadcom to come out FPGA solution to enhance its graphics performance that have been quite lacking since Intel Atom families available to market last year.

Intel realizes very well on its shortcoming and even with the internal core technology based on Imagination Technologies on US15W or 945GSE chipset, none of them can offer a good graphics performance to satisfy consumers’ high expectation. And now with its graphics and memory controller capabilities being integrated into processor core, the graphics technical gap could be even obvious and it is hoping on Broadcom chip to fill it up.

The Broadcom FPGA chip, named as BCM70015 is expected to be able to offload graphics processing especially for stringent HD (High Definition) 720p/1080i resolution or even full HD 1080p media decode in various codec such as H.264, MPEG2, WMV9, VC-1 and etc.BCM70015 is very thermally efficient and consumes less than 1 Watt when running full 1080p media contents. More importantly, its ultra small foot print of 10 mm X 10 mm can fit well in any customer boards without affecting overall system dimensions.

Broadcom will provide early prototype samples by August with mass production expected by end of this year which is still one year earlier before Pine Trail availability by end of next year.