Intel details 22nm BayTrail Atom SoC

Intel VP Mike Bell says Santa Clara’s 22nm BayTrail Atom SoC is “already booting” and should be available by the 2013 holiday season.

“The first quad-core Atom SoC will be the most powerful Atom processor to date, delivering more than two times the computing performance of Intel’s current generation tablet offering,” Bell told journalists during an event at CES 2013 in Las Vegas.

“It will also include new improved integrated security offerings. These improvements will enable new experiences for business and personal use in devices as thin as 8mm that have all-day battery life and weeks of standby, all at lower prices.”

According to Bell, Bay Trail builds on the work done with the company’s current SoC development and accelerates “very quickly” by taking advantage of Intel’s core computing strengths.

Bell also outlined Intel’s new low-power Atom processor-based platform (formerly codenamed Lexington) and reference design which is targeted at the value smartphone market.

A number of partners have apparently already signed on to support the platform, including Acer, Lava International and Safaricom.

“The new platform brings [our] classic product strengths to this fast-growing smartphone market segment, including impressive performance for quick Web browsing, and a great multimedia and Android applications experience,” said Bell.

“The addition of the low-power Atom platform enables Intel to address new market segments and further rounds out our expanding portfolio of smartphone offering.”

Finally, Bell highlighted Santa Clara’s upcoming Intel Atom Z2580 (Clover Trail) processor platform which is designed to power performance and mainstream smartphones. The dual-core chip includes a dual-core graphics engine, and is expected to deliver up to two times the performance benefits over Intel’s current-generation solution (the Z2460), while also offering “competitive” power and battery life.