Freescale promises $200 netbook

From TG Daily -

Freescale Semiconductor will be introducing in the next few months a $200 netbook, roughly half the price of current best-selling models. The new netbook will feature non-x86-based chips delivering up to eight hours of battery life, and would also be much thinner than present models. In addition, it will support operating systems like Phoenix's Hyperspace pre-boot shell and Xandros Linux, contrary to earlier announcements limiting support to Ubuntu.

The company had previously announced they would be designing a netbook with 3G connectivity, all day battery life, and the use of their own i.MX515 processor -- which is based on ARM's Cortex-A8 technology. While this CPU is not x86-based, it does promote energy efficiency using a RISC-like design.

Freescale Offers New Netbook Platform

From I4U -

Freescale has announced the expansion of its netbook offerings with new connectivity and OS options based on its i.MX515 processor. The new reference design includes Ubuntu as an OS choice (with Android, Xandros and others as options) and promises up to eight hours of battery life. 3G connectivity is supported with technology from Wavecom and Option.

The reference design is available now at competitive price points and volume production of the processor is planned for Q2 2009 with netbook products expected to appear by holiday 2009.

New Freescale processors target Linux netbooks

From Ars Technica -

Freescale Semiconductor is launching a new, low-cost processor, the i.MX515, that is designed to power "low-power, gigahertz performance netbooks at sub-$200 price points." The processor performs from around 600mHz to 1 GHz and provides up to 2,100 Dhrystone MIPS. It supports mobile DDR1 and DDR2, allowing for a bit more flexibility in configuration. But the main selling point would be an extended battery life of up to 8 hours for 8.9" models. The caveat is that operating system support will likely be limited to Linux as the chip will not likely be able to provide enough power to run any Windows operating system, including netbook standard XP.

Freescale Low-Cost Netbook Processor

From Yahoo! News -

Freescale Semiconductor is entering the netbook market with a solution that promises to make possible portable devices that feature 8.9" displays, 8 hours of battery life, and prices under $200.

Its solution is based on its new i.MX515 processor featuring ARM Cortex-A8 technology and includes software, components and resources that aim to help OEMs rapidly develop and deploy netbooks.