Centrino is a

brand name A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 serie ...

which represents its

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

and

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...

wireless computer networking adapters. Previously the same brand name was used by the company as a platform-

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

initiative. The change of the meaning of the brand name occurred on January 7, 2010. The Centrino was replaced by the

Ultrabook Ultrabook is a marketing term, originated and trademarked by Intel, for a category of high-end laptop computers. They were originally marketed as featuring ultra thin form factor and light weight design without compromising battery life or per ...

. The old platform-marketing brand name covered a particular combination of mainboard

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System" that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on the mo ...

, mobile

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...

and

wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing ...

interface in the design of a

laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

. Intel claimed that systems equipped with these technologies delivered better performance, longer battery life and broader

interoperability than non-Centrino systems. The new product line name for Intel wireless products is Intel Centrino Wireless.

Intel Centrino

Notebook implementations

Carmel platform (2003)

Intel used " Carmel" as the codename for the first-generation Centrino platform, introduced in March 2003. Industry-watchers initially criticized the Carmel platform for its lack of support for IEEE 802.11g, because many independent Wi-Fi chip-makers like

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...

and

Atheros Qualcomm Atheros is a developer of semiconductor Integrated circuit, chips for Computer network, network communications, particularly wireless chipsets. Founded under the name T-Span Systems in 1998 by experts in signal processing and VLSI desig ...

had already started shipping 802.11g products. Intel responded that the IEEE had not finalized the 802.11g standard at the time of Carmel's announcement. In early 2004, after the finalization of the 802.11g standard, Intel permitted an Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 BG to substitute for the 2100. At the same time, they permitted the new Dothan Pentium M to substitute for the Banias Pentium M. Initially, Intel permitted only the 855GM chipset, which did not support external graphics. Later, Intel allowed the 855GME and 855PM chips, which did support external graphics, in Centrino

s. Despite criticisms, the Carmel platform won quick acceptance among

OEMs An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

and consumers. Carmel could attain or exceed the performance of older Pentium 4-M platforms, while allowing for laptops to operate for 4 to 5 hours on a 48 W-h battery. Carmel also allowed laptop manufacturers to create thinner and lighter laptops because its components did not dissipate much heat, and thus did not require large cooling systems.

Sonoma platform (2005)

Intel used '' Sonoma'' as the codename for the second-generation Centrino platform, introduced in January 2005. The Mobile 915 Express chipset, like its desktop version, supports many new features such as DDR2,

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...

Intel High Definition Audio Intel High Definition Audio (IHDA) (also called HD Audio or development codename Azalia) is a specification for the audio sub-system of personal computers. It was released by Intel in 2004 as the successor to their AC'97 PC audio standard. Featur ...

, and

SATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard t ...

. Unfortunately, the introduction of PCI Express and faster Pentium M processors causes laptops built around the Sonoma platform to have a shorter battery-life than their Carmel counterparts; Sonoma laptops typically achieve between 3.5–4.6 hours of battery-life on a 53 W-h battery.

Napa platform (2006)

The codename '' Napa'' designates the third-generation Centrino platform, introduced in January 2006 at the Winter

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event t ...

. The platform initially supported Intel Core Duo processors but the newer Core 2 Duo processors were launched and supported in this platform from July 27, 2006 onwards. Intel uses Centrino Duo branding for laptops with dual-

core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...

Core Duo Intel Core is a line of streamlined midrange consumer, workstation and enthusiast computer central processing units (CPUs) marketed by Intel Corporation. These processors displaced the existing mid- to high-end Pentium processors at the time o ...

processors and retains the Centrino name for laptops with single core ( Core Solo) processors. Some of the initial Core Duo laptops are still labeled as Intel Centrino rather than Centrino Duo.

Santa Rosa platform (2007)

The codename ''

Santa Rosa Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose. Santa Rosa may also refer to: Places Argentina * Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city * Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca * Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca *Santa Rosa, La Pampa * S ...

'' refers to the fourth-generation Centrino platform, which was released on Thursday May 10, 2007. The Santa Rosa platform comes with dynamic acceleration technology, allowing single threaded applications to execute faster. When a single threaded application is running, the CPU can turn off one of its cores and overclock the active core. In this way the CPU maintains the same Thermal Profile as it would when both cores are active. Santa Rosa performs well as a mobile gaming platform due to its ability to switch between single threaded and multithreaded tasks. Other power savings come from an Enhanced Sleep state where both the CPU cores and the chipset will power down. The wireless chipset update was originally intended to include WWAN Internet access via

HSDPA High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunic ...

(3.5G), (codenamed Windigo) co-developed with

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

. After announcing a working partnership, both later retracted the deal citing the lack of a clear business case for the technology. Support for

(802.16) was originally scheduled for inclusion in Santa Rosa but was later delayed until Montevina in 2008. It is branded as "Centrino Pro" when combined with the enhanced security technologies Intel introduced with

vPro The VPRO (stylized vpro; originally an acronym for , ) is a Dutch public broadcaster, which forms a part of the Dutch public broadcasting system. Founded in 1926 as a liberal Protestant broadcasting organization, it gradually became more ...

and "Centrino Duo" when they are not used.

Montevina platform (2008)

The codename ''Montevina'' refers to the fifth-generation Centrino platform, now formally named Centrino 2 to avoid confusion with previous Centrino platforms. It was scheduled for release at Computex Taipei 2008, which took place on June 3–7, 2008, but was delayed until July 15, due to problems with integrated graphics and wireless certification. It is branded as Centrino 2 vPro when combined with built-in security and manageability features technologies.

Calpella platform (2009)

The codename '' Calpella'' refers to the sixth-generation Centrino platform. Though originally scheduled to premiere in Q3 2009 with the second iteration of Nehalem processors, Intel had stated that due to pressure from computer manufacturers, they would delay the release of the platform until at least October 2009 (Q4 2009) to allow OEM partners to clear excess inventory of existing chips. This was believed to be spurred by the lowered demand due to unfavorable economic conditions throughout 2009.

Huron River platform (2011)

The codename ''"Huron River"'' refers to the seventh-generation Centrino platform.

Chief River platform (2012)

The codename '' Chief River'' refers to the eighth-generation Centrino platform.

Shark Bay platform (2013)

The codename ''Shark Bay'' refers to the ninth-generation Centrino platform. Jon Worrel predicted in 2012 that Shark Bay would comprise a single Multi-Chip Module (MCM) package.

Mobile Internet Device

Menlow platform (2008)

On March 2, 2008, Intel introduced the

Intel Atom Intel Atom is the brand name for a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Co ...

processor brand for a new family of low-power processor platforms. The components have thin, small designs and work together to "enable the best mobile computing and Internet experience" on mobile and low-power devices. Intel's second generation MID platform (codenamed Menlow) contains a 45 nm Intel Atom processor (codenamed Silverthorne) which can run up to 2.0 GHz and a System Controller Hub (codenamed Poulsbo) which includes Intel HD Audio (codenamed Azalia). This platform was initially branded as Centrino Atom but the logo was dropped in August 2008; the logo had caused confusion between laptop and MID with previous marketing of Centrino stating only Intel chipsets are being used. Hence MIDs will be branded as Atom to allow integration with other OEM chipsets for the low-end market.

Intel Centrino Wireless

Intel Centrino Wireless is the brand for Intel

and

adapters. The product line includes: *Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000 *Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 *Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 *Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250

Centrino with Intel vPro technology

Laptops with Intel

technology have hardware features that allow a system administrator to remotely access wired and wireless laptops for maintenance and servicing if the operating system is unresponsive or crashed and, when a laptop is connected to AC power (not on battery power), allow a sys-admin to remotely access the laptop when the system is asleep or laptop power is off. It is targeted more for businesses than consumers. * Centrino laptop with Intel

technology ( Santa Rosa platform) * Centrino 2 laptop with Intel vPro technology ( Montevina platform)

Security technologies

Laptops with vPro have the typical

dual-core A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such ...

or quad-core processor and wireless features of the Centrino family. * The vPro technology built into the chipset adds management, security, and remote-deployment features for: monitoring laptops (protected event logs, access to

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the b ...

settings, out-of-band alerting, protected data storage), maintaining and updating systems (access to protected system information, remote power up, console redirection), repairing systems (remote boot, console redirection, preboot access to BIOS settings, protected events logs), and securing systems (remote power up, hardware filters for network traffic, agent presence checks/triggers, out-of-band alerting). * The 45 nm Centrino 2 package is based on the Penryn microprocessor and Q47/Q45 chipset. It includes a better graphics engine (integrated) than Centrino, and three key additional features:

Transport Layer Security Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in securi ...

(TLS) secured communications over an open

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a large ...

(LAN) for wired laptops outside the corporate

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

(not supported for wireless states), support for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

Network Access Protection Network Access Protection (NAP) is a Microsoft technology for controlling network access of a computer, based on its health. With NAP, system administrators of an organization can define policies for system health requirements. Examples of system h ...

(NAP), and support for out-of-band management and security features in Sx (all sleep states) when the laptop is inside the corporate firewall.

References

External links

Intel Processor comparison table

Intel(R) vPro(TM) Expert Center

March 20, 2003. Copy hosted by the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

.
Linux on Centrino based laptops and notebooks
{{Intel technology Intel products Laptops