Intel unveils Core 2 Duo

Intel announces Core 2 Duo as the official name for its new desktop and laptop processors

Intel has announced Core 2 Duo as the official name for both its new desktop and laptop processors, due to ship in the second half of 2006.

Formerly codenamed Conroe and Merom, the new chips are dual-core processors based on Intel's next-generation Core micro-architecture and manufactured using a 65nm process.

The Conroe Core 2 Duo chip will form part of Intel's vPro corporate desktop platform later this year, while the Merom version will succeed the current Core Duo as the top performing laptop chip in Intel's Centrino platform.

“With this unified PC and notebook brand and micro-architecture, everyone will have a simple way to choose the most powerful and energy-efficient processors in the world, and developers will be able to more easily write optimised software just once for a variety of computing segments,” said Intel senior vice-president Eric Kim.