Intel Corp. is reportedly planning to release the world’s first dual-core central processing unit (CPU) with power consumption below 10W. This will allow to install such chips into embedded applications as well as very thin and light notebooks, providing relatively high performance amid extremely low power.

On June 25, 2006, Intel Corp. is projected to introduce its Intel Core Duo U2500, which works at 1.20GHz, has 2MB unified L2 cache and uses 533MHz processor system bus (PSB). The new model U2500 will have thermal design power of 9W, which is not too much higher compared to ultra low-voltage Intel Core Solo processors introduced several weeks ago and clocked at approximately the same clock-speed. The Core Duo U2400 will support all the capabilities found in the rest processors of such kind, like execute disable bit, virtualization, enhanced Intel Speed Step and so on.

In addition to the Core Duo U2500, Intel will offer two ultra low-voltage Celeron M processors models 423 (Yonah, 1.07GHz, 1MB cache, 533MHz PSB) and 373 (Dothan, 1.0GHz, 512KB cache, 400MHz PSB) with 5.5W TDP. Such chips may not only be used in low-cost low-voltage embedded applications, but may also allow computer makers to create affordable thin and light notebooks, which would be in demand by students during back-to-school season.

A news-story over HKEPC web-site claims that Intel Core Duo U2400 processor will cost $289 in 1000-unit quantities, whereas the exact pricing of the Celeron M processors with 5.5W power consumption is unknown.

Intel did not comment on the news-story.