Intel Will Transition To “Pine Trail” Atom Platform By CES in January

It looks as though Intel isn’t going to drag things out. They’re ready to move on from the current generation of Atom processors and on to the next. So, goodbye N270 / N280 — you were awesome and we’ll miss you. But only as long as it takes us to get used to your replacements, the single-core Atom N450 and dual-core Atom D510 and Atom D410, all codenamed Pineview.

According to Xbit Laboratories, Intel will reveal more details about the chips on December 21, then roll them out to manufacturers in time for Pine Trail platform netbooks to be on display at CES in early January.

Why the fast transition? As Darren Murph of Endgadget points out, consumers appear quite happy with the current Atom offerings, snapping up netbooks left and right. But the advent of CULV processors in low-cost ultraportables means that people will start comparing performance scores (not to mention prices) and wondering why they should bother with a netbook. Pine Trail might tighten the gap.