By the end of 2006, 90% of Intel's chips would be dual-core

The world's leading chip maker will start rolling out more dual-core processors this quarter. It is expected that by the end of this year, 9/10 of their mobile device processing capacity will no longer be a single core.

Previously, Intel said it would enter 2007 with "more than 70%" of two-core chips, mainly Core Duo 'Yonah', in addition to some new generation Meron series. But last week, Intel insisted that Meron will be available in August instead of the fourth quarter of 2006 as originally planned, so it believes the transition from single-core to dual-core will happen more quickly.

Intel also hopes Conroe, the new generation of desktop processors and launched alongside Meron, will boost the desktop market. They claim to end 2006 with 75% of dual-core CPUs.

However, switching to Meron will be less beneficial for users like Conroe. Intel acknowledges that Meron delivers 20% higher performance than the 2.16GHz Core Duo T2600, which is not as high as 40% when comparing Conroe with Pentium D 960 3.6GHz.

However, the driving force behind the popularity of dual-core came from Woodcrest, the server-based processing device, which Intel claimed would be 80% more efficient than Xeon DP 2.8. GHz. Woodcrest will account for about 75% of Xeon DP shipped in the fourth quarter.

TN