Today may go down in history as the day when Intel has broken the doors to the processors for small devices market, by releasing the previously codenamed "Silvethorne" chip using a new name, Atom. So...what's that special with this new processor, after all?


The Intel Atom chip was designed from scratch using 45nm technology, and its targets are ultra mobile PCs(UMPCs), smart phones, possibly even portable game consoles, and other portable, low-power devices. With a CPU clock speed ranging between 500MHz and 1.8GHz, the single core Atom has only 47 million transistors, and has a maximum TDP of 2.5W, which sounds great, considering the fact that a 1.8GHz Atom is expected to have a similar performance to a first generation Pentium M processor!

Intel's Sean Maloney said "This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry.", and, for now, there's no reason not to believe him. Time shall tell if he was right or not, as it always does...