At CES 2019 earlier this year, Intel announced the launch of an initiative codenamed "Project Athena" to help mobile computer makers develop the next generation of ultrabooks. Today, the company has moved from words to deeds and announced the creation of a network of open laboratories within the framework of the project. Over the next few weeks, such laboratories will appear at Intel's facilities in Taipei and Shanghai, as well as at the company's office in Folsom, California.
Reportedly, the goal of creating such laboratories is to enable Intel to help partners develop the next generation of thin and light mobile computers. In Project Athena laboratories, the company also intends to organize testing of third-party components for their compliance with the requirements put forward within the framework of the project.
Not all companies partnering with Intel are large manufacturers with in-house engineering teams capable of doing a complete mobile device development cycle from scratch. It is they who should be helped by the open laboratories of Project Athena: in them, Intel engineers will be ready to provide all possible assistance to partners in designing and bringing their developments to mind. By allowing Intel to validate third-party hardware against its requirements, partners can easily incorporate reference designs and approved components into products.
The first laptops built according to Project Athena patterns are expected to be released in the second half of 2019. Manufacturers such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung, Sharp and even Google are actively participating in the program. As part of the initiative, Intel even held a special symposium this week to discuss the preparation of the first wave of systems built on the basis of the project. The company is putting so much emphasis on this initiative because it wants to make the next generation of thin and light laptops based on its platform a new benchmark for the industry: such systems should not only get more modern features, but also be affordable in terms of cost.
The idea is that the ultrabook models that are widely available on the market will gradually become better. The basic principles in accordance with which the new generation laptops released under Project Athena should be built are already known. They are supposed to be responsive, always connected to the network and as long as possible on battery life. Such models will be based on energy-efficient Intel Core processors U and Y series (probably, we are talking about promising 10nm processors), weigh less than 1,3 kg and meet high requirements for the minimum allowable screen brightness and battery life. At the same time, Intel representatives say that they do not expect any radical breakthrough in performance from the new generation of mobile computers, but rather about design improvements to improve performance and autonomy.
Through open labs, manufacturers will be able to submit their equipment to Project Athena compliance testing and receive recommendations for reconfiguration and selection of optimal components such as audio, display, embedded controllers, haptic devices, SSD, Wi-Fi, etc. Intel's goal is to get design issues resolved as early as possible so that laptops arrive properly designed, tuned, and configured by the time they launch. Moreover, this condition must be met not only for the solutions of the leading companies, but also for the products of second-tier manufacturers.
Source: 3dnews.ru