IDF Intel launched its first foray into the world of system-on-a-chip (SoC) products for consumer electronics kit in April this year. Then, at its Spring IDF conference, it launched the CE2110, an ARM-based CPU with a built-in graphics engine, memory controller and more.
At the time, Intel's Digital Home Group chief, Eric Kim, mentioned that the chip giant would next year offer an updated SoC based not on ARM CPU technology, but on its own x86 instruction set, as used in all its desktop and mobile processors.
Six months or so on, at the Autumn IDF, Intel CEO Paul Otellini put a name to the project - 'Canmore' - and said it would make its first public appearance in January 2008 at the CES show.
Like the CE2110, Canmore is aimed at TVs and set-top boxes. The current chip combines a 1GHz processing core with a memory controller; a PowerVR MBX Lite GPU; controllers for USB, SATA, PCI, smart cards and other ports and interconnects; decoders for MPEG 2 and H.264 video; digital and analogue display drivers; a transport stream handler; TV descrambling circuitry; and an AES encryption module.
Canmore is likely to contain all these elements - Otellini mentioned the chip's AV pipeline, GPU, I/O components and a security sub-system - with a low-power x86 core, possibly based on the 45nm 'Silverthorne' CPU Intel is developing for UMPCs and mobile web gadgets.
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