Intel’s budget platform ‘Shelton’ expected in mid-2008

Taiwanese computer manufacturers expect Intel to launch its ‘Shelton’ budget desktop platform by mid-next year. Asus, among others, would have been contacted in the hope that Shelton will end up in the Eee PC desktop.

It is striking that the platform, which Intel has been working on for more than three years, despite being designed for desktops, would be the first to make its appearance in notebooks. That’s thanks to the use of fuel-efficient 45nm processors and improved heat dissipation, thus DigiTimes. For the third quarter, laptops are expected to be priced under $300, followed shortly after by desktops that retail for less than $100.

Not much is known about Shelton yet. Early reporting reports a processor clocked at 1GHz with no L2 cache. Nobody talked about the release date three years ago, but it was speculated that the CPU would be baked at 90nm. Presumably, Intel waited with the platform until it had its 45nm factories up and running, because of the power savings that would bring to the CPU for the Shelton platform.

The Diamondville processor, which Intel CEO Mooly Eeden featured at the Taiwanese edition of the IDF last month announced and which, according to Taiwanese PC makers, is the beating heart of Shelton, will have a TDP of less than 10W. The emerging-markets platform supports Windows Vista Home Basic. DigiTimes sources list Intel’s 945GC and Silicon Integrated Systems’ SiS671 as possible chipsets. Intel recently started purchasing more chipsets from this latter Taiwanese chip manufacturer.