Intel wants back in the tablet space with its new Tremont architecture

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Intel is unveiling its new "Tremont" line of ultra-low-power 10nm CPUs today at the Linley microprocessor conference in Santa Clara. Intel's presentation on the new line says that usage will "span client, IoT, and datacenter products." It's a little too early for a laundry list of the actual devices that will be powered by Tremont, but we do know that the new dual-screened Surface Neo is among them; its Lakefield hybrid processor uses both high-powered Ice Lake and low-powered Tremont cores.

Tremont is the successor to last year's Goldmont Plus, and Goldmont and Silvermont before it. These are the lowest-powered (and frequently, least expensive) CPUs in Intel's lineup, and consumers will generally be more familiar with them by names like Celeron and Pentium N. You could occasionally find Celeron or Pentium N processors in extremely low-end retail generic Windows PCs, but they were more frequently seen in specialty items like the bare Linux router build we showed off back in 2016.

Overcoming some bad history

Pentium N and Celeron were generally well received—but then there was the Atom. Intel CPUs branded with the Atom name have traditionally been on the extreme low end in both power consumption and processing performance. A few years ago, I saw that Asus made an Intel-powered Android tablet, and naively, I assumed anything x86 would blow anything ARM out of the water, so I bought one for my son. It did not meet my unwarranted expectations; and its Atom Z3745 performed in line with this versus.com comparison between it and its contemporaneous Qualcomm Snapdragon competitor.

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