from geeks.com
More Banias, Centrino, Pentium-M info
Additional details on Intel's next big mobile platform
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posted 1:49pm EST Fri Jan 10 2003 - submitted by Rob Hughes
BLURB
Aside from the Centrino brand name for their mobile Banias chip platform, yesterday's press release didn't give too many details. Some Consumer Electronics Show coverage over at Yahoo! pinned down the release date of Centrino systems, with Intel announcing Centrino laptop suppliers in March. Initial Centrino chips will use 802.11b wireless chipsets, and future ones will use ... 802.11a? Yuck! 802.11a isn't backwards-compatible. Intel should take a note from Apple and embrace 802.11g. That's like hard-coding DDR333 into your flagship chip ... but I'd say worse. At least DDR333 is ubiquitous. Big ups to Big Fred for listing a link to the XbitLabs coverage of Centrino. Centrino isn't really the name of the chip. Banias will be titled "Pentium-M" according to X-Bit, and will use the i855 chipset. The platform as a whole will receive a Centrino logo if the chip, chipset, and wireless controller are mated together. That's an interesting idea from Intel, and it sounds like a good one to keep people aware of what features they are getting with a simple brand name. Sure, if Geeks named chips and platforms the next Athlon would be called Megalon, and the Pentium-M would be called Pentium III+-M, but that is not the case.
don't know how accurate but this is the best i could find
mike
