Intel Haswell Chip Uses 20X Less Power Than Today’s Laptops

During today’s keynote speech at the Intel Developer’s Forum in San Francisco, Intel CEO Paul Otellini demonstrated the successor to the Ivy Bridge chip, code-named Haswell. Set to debut in 2013, this new chip is designed for ultrabooks. What’s really impressive about Haswell is that it will consume 20 times less power than Intel’s current chips thanks to advances in silicon and power management.

Intel isn’t kidding about the power management either. The chip will allow notebooks to have 10 days of standby power, where the screen and most operations will be suspended, but the ultrabook will still maintain its Wi-fi connection so that e-mails, files, and tweets will stay up-to-date on the system. Anyone who has turned on their computer and waited for e-mail to download after a long weekend will appreciate this technology.

Going beyond 2013, they also showed off a chip that sips power so slowly that Intel demonstrated it running a system with Windows off of a single solar cell the size of a postage stamp.  The chip is described as a “Near Threshold Voltage Processor.” Imagine how incredible it would be to see ultrabooks that ran solely on solar power.