Intel's Haswell launch cheers up India team

Intel Corp has set the ball rolling to revolutionise the personal computing experience with the launch of its fourth generation core family processor, code-named Haswell.

Devices powered by these advanced processors are expected to flood the market this year and give birth to a new category of mobile devices called two-in-one ultrabooks.

Within two days of the global launch of the processor, Kirk B Skaugen, senior vice-president and general manager of Intel's personal computer client group, was here. The city, known as India's Silicon Valley, has contributed immensely to the design, validation and software development of the processor, he said. "This was the first microprocessor we designed from the ground up for ultrabooks. A lot of the developments, both in software and hardware, were done here in Bangalore, which is exciting."

The most significant contribution of Intel's Bangalore research and development team was in the area of visualisaton, which has resulted in twice the increase in the graphics and media experience, the company claims. "A significant amount of processor design, processor validation and software as well as visualisation works has been done here by our visualisation and computing group," Skaugen said.

The reference design he demonstrated to media was a 'two-in-one' ultrabook, which works both as a notebook and a tablet, with a detachable keyboard and a foldable screen. The touch screen device, which is also responsive to gestures, gives 13 hours of battery life. On an average, the processor delivers 50 per cent increase in battery life in active workloads over the previous generation.

"The launch of the processor is ushering in a new era of computing... what we call the two-in-one computing. By two-in-one computing, we mean it's a tablet when you want it and a notebook when you need it. You no longer have to choose between the two," Skaugen said.

The ultrabooks powered by the fourth generation processors can halve the weight of devices, compared to the previous generation. The thickness could be as less as 10 mm. For example, Sony on Wednesday unveiled three new Haswell-powered ultrabooks within its Vaio range with weight of about 800 g each.

"We have seen designs that can be less than 15 mm thick and if you detach the keyboard, then it would be less than 10 mm thick," said Skaugen.

It is not that the two-in-one ultrabooks are completely new to the market. Currently, there are about five different designs of two-in-one ultrabooks available in the market. Intel believes such designs are going to witness a 10-fold increase by the end of 2013, which will basically be driven by the long-battery life and superior experience through the new processor.