Intel Atom N2600 and N2800 will be available in December

Intel's latest Atom platform, codenamed Cedar Trail, was scheduled for release in September. The platform consisted of 4 SKUs, D2500 and N2700 for ultra-low power desktops, and N2600 and N2800 for netbooks and mobile devices. Although desktop "CedarView-D" Atoms from this platform were launched as planned, mobile "CedarView-M" CPUs has been delayed twice, for a second time until December. The reason of delay was attributed to graphics driver certification problems. According to recent DigiTimes report, the CedarView-M processors will be launched in December after all. DigiTime's sources stated that the delay was caused by weak netbook demand. Other sources reported earlier that Samsung may exit netbook market in 2012. This will leave only two netbook vendors, Asustek Computer and Acer. Digitimes sources said that Asustek is expected to ship from 4 to 4.2 million netbooks in 2012, and Acer shipments should be about the same.

Two upcoming Cedar View-M models have 2 CPU cores, 1 MB L2 cache, and support Hyper-Threading technology. Atom N2600 runs at 1.6 GHz, and fits into 3.5 Watt thermal envelope. Atom N2800 features higher 1.86 GHz frequency, albeit it has higher 6.5 Watt TDP. The CPUs will be priced from $42 to $47 in 1K tray quantities.