Intel Pentium M microprocessor family

The Pentium M family was introduced as a part of Intel Centrino technology on March 12, 2003. The Centrino technology is a set of components, including Intel Pentium M or Celeron M processor, Intel 855 or 915M chipset and Intel PRO/Wireless adapter, that can used to build mobile systems with integrated wireless support and extended battery life. All Centrino components were specifically designed for mobile applications, that is their primary goal was to provide reduced power consumption, even if in some cases this resulted in slightly lower performance. Nevertheless, due to shorter instruction pipeline and many improved or new features, such as enhanced branch prediction, dedicated stack manager and others, the Pentium M micro-architecture is much more power and CPU efficient than Pentium 4 micro-architecture. For example, Pentium M CPU running at 1.6 GHz usually performs as fast or faster as Pentium 4 2.4 GHz while consuming much less power.

Pentium M micro-architecture takes some features from Pentium III and Pentium 4 micro-architectures, and adds many new features. Like Pentium 4 CPUs, Pentium M microprocessors utilize quad-pumped Front Side Bus running at 100 and 133 MHz, or effectively at 400 and 533 MHz. The Pentium M CPU has separate 32 KB instruction and data caches (twice as large as on Pentium 4 or Pentium III), large 1 or 2 MB level 2 cache, and includes MMX, SSE and SSE2 instructions. The processor supports many power-saving modes that are present in Mobile Pentium 4, including Deeper Sleep mode. In addition to these modes the CPU contains logic that turns off parts of the CPU that are not needed. The Intel Pentium M also includes Enhanced SpeedStep technology - this technology allows the CPU to switch to lower frequency and operating voltage when maximum performance is not required.

Pentium M microprocessors are packaged in 479-ball micro FC-BGA and 478-pin micro FC-PGA packages. This micro FC-PGA package is not compatible with any other 478-pin packages that Intel used with mobile Pentium III-M, Mobile Pentium 4/4-M, Core Duo/Solo and mobile Core 2 Duo processors.