Intel Gives Sneak Peek at Chip for Hand-Helds

Intel Corp. on Tuesday will provide details on the design for its next generation of microprocessors for hand-held computers and digital set-top boxes. Even though the new StrongARM design will not find its way into products until next year, analysts think it will be a strong contender in a fresh arena for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

“Technically it looks to be a pretty stupendous piece of engineering work,” said Jim Turley, a chip analyst with Microdesign Resources in Sebastopol, Calif.

The new StrongARM design should be about four times as fast as Intel’s current chips for hand-held devices--running at up to 600 megahertz, compared with a top speed of 150 megahertz today--yet should require a small fraction of the power needed by today’s chips.

That speed and efficiency will enable a new generation of hand-held devices to manage constant Web connections, dictation and other jobs that require a great deal of computing power, said Mark Casey, marketing director for StrongARM.

Intel is announcing the new processor a year ahead of its launch, Turley suggested, to allay industry fears that the company is not serious about this category of processor, which is far less profitable than PC microprocessors, where Intel dominates.