Intel LV & ULV VOTE POLL

Currently Intel does not realize the huge channel they have for their mobile LV & ULV processors so they only offer them in BGA format which requires them to be soldered on to system boards. We at P1 are working on changing that and are trying to convince Intel that there is a very large demand for the LV & ULV processors in PGA (Socket) format so people can upgrade their processors down the road instead of being forced to replace their entire system. This is a win/win situation for customers, system builders and Intel, so please vote and reply with your suggestions please, the more replies the better…we are hoping to convince them to offer the upcoming Merom LV’s in PGA formats and if Intel sees a demand they will most likely make them in the socket formats like the others.

Thanks, and what better place to start this thread than a forum dedicated to portable computers!

 

As far as the poll is concerned, is there any reason why someone would NOT want good battery life and/or upgrade ability?

 

Exactly, makes no sense on why Intel does not make their most efficient, without sacrificing performance, mobile processors in the standard upgradeable formats like the others. They need to see that there is a demand from us road warriors and they are more likely to see more processor sales too..

 

One reason could be that the BGA format is actually smaller, and as far as I know, more efficient and can consume less power.

 

The CPU's are the same size, BGA (Ball) have solder balls to solder to the system board and PGA (PIN) pins are pluggable into the sockets we are all familar with. Intel makes all the others in both BGA & PGA, just not the LV's & ULV's, because they do not know of a demand. That is why I spending so much time on trying to convince them to do such, but they only make thousands at a time, so it would not be worth it to them to take our and a handful of reps at Intel to convince their marketing team to offer in PGA too...there are also BGA to PGA adapters out there but not a cost effective solution, so Intel needs to see the demand...

 

Intel, the dinosaur of the era are we?

 

I don't see how they could lose out. If anything a user is more likely to buy a second CPU if a better option is available than to just buy a whole new laptop. In that situation, I would think most users would hang on to their laptop until it needs replacing before buying the new CPU with their next system. That would only create the potential for more sales of CPUs for Intel.

I mean, just look at how many Core Duo owners want to buy Meroms...even though it's relatively expensive for the amount of performance gain they stand to get.

 

I agree, Intel would definitely come out on top. Battery life and CPU upgradability would be a huge plus in ultraportable laptops, given that they are meant to be portable. With all the power hungry programs that are coming out that people might have to use on the road, upgrading a CPU over buying a new system would be alot cheaper.

 

If Intel is in the business of selling processors (which last time I checked, they are) and they want people to buy processors from them in the future, why wouldn't they do this? Maybe it's slightly more expensive to produce or something, but it'd make for good PR for them to be "customer friendly" and if you look down the long road and people do buy processors from Intel so they can upgrade their notebook then it's good business for them as well.

 

yes, of course

 

I certainly agree that Intel should produce the ULV and LV cpus in PGA/sockets flavors. I know I appreciate that on all the other CPU lines of theirs.

 

Personally I feel a person should have the right to upgrade the cpu if they wish

 

upgradeability is one of the most important things I think Intel should work on!

 

I think direct connection of cpu to motherboard will allow for smaller size and space saving devices due to no need for the acutual socket.

I would like to have the option of upgrading the cpu...but Intel may have a market model in which they don't want to make low voltage upgradable. The issue is not "Long battery life and upgradbility." Intel mainly sell directly to OEM, if they want BGA, intel will make BGA. Intel is not going to make PGA for a handfull of enthusist. The average mainstream consumer is not going to upgrade their CPU. So why make it?

Of course Intel can make PGA and charge $50 more for it and IBM/Sony will just pass the cost down to the consumer in which most will not upgrade anyways. You can still upgrade BGA with professional service...but it won't be a "drop in" upgrade as PGA.

Also if you look at Intel's LV&ULV product line up...they don't change/improve much from time of launch. They might add 1 update model in about 1 year....from 1.1Ghz to 1.2Ghz.

Even if they made it upgradable, obtaining a "Mobile Processor" is difficult. You might find some on eBay, or at some vender at high prices. Intel doens't make many retail mobile processor, mostly OEM

 

Absolutely, it is very important for notebooks to be as upgradeable as possible. If Intel does have the capability to make all their processors upgradeable then they should proceed to implementation immediately.

 

Hells yeah

 

Most definitely!

 

Misleading poll. Why was battery life included.

 

This could be a benefit for vendors such as P1, but what about Intel and the customers? Think of the costs to make an upgradable ULV processors and laptops:

1. ultraportable notebooks will be more expensive
2. why would you buy a new processor to upgrade when the processor and the labour costs more than your one year-old notebook? Isn't it better to just buy a new laptop with all the technologies coming out at a rapid pace?
3. it will take more effort and resources to design an ultraportable since there will be some obstacles needed to design the bottom casing so that the processor is upgradable
4. ultraportables will be thicker in dimensions, which is a step backwards

This is basically a petition to boost sales for P1 and similar vendors but could potentially hurt Intel and the customers.

 

I want notebooks to be just as user upgradable as desktops are currently.
Tim

 

Quite simply put, it just makes more sense.

Battery life was included because the LV and ULV cpus have lower power consumption than teh regular notebook CPUs.

 

but first notebook manufacturers must make notebooks with easy accessible cpu socket - so you don't have to disassemble whole notebook just to upgrade processor.

 

Sure. But I'm tempted to vote yes becuase I want battery life and that answer is embeded in the upgradability answer. Everyone wants battery life but does it mean that If my notebook is not upgradable I wont get battery life.

 

Yes, sure. Soldering's no good.

 

make notebooks more upgradeable !

 

The LV and ULV processors are all about efficiency without sacrificing performance. By soldering them to the boards, Intel prevents users from upgrading to future, more efficient, better performing processors.

Bad Juju. Theres the demand for them, just read some of the posts about people who want a gaming machine that doesn't run so hot or short. Market the LV and ULV processors as that and make it clear that no performance is lost and you'll have them sell.

 

I voted yes because I love high battery life...Who voted no?

 

Look, if you buy a standard intel laptop that is upgradeable (such as an Asus S96J -- just as an example) but you are unhappy with the battery life you get, and want 4 hours instead of 2.5, there isnt much you can do about it other than getting the extended battery. However, if Intel made the LV proccesors available in socket form to customers, one could put the LV 1.66GHz Core Duo, and get nearly the same performance as a T2300E, and also reduce cpu power consumption by half or more. This is a win win situation.
And on the other end of the scale, some lunatic could put a T2700 into a TX or some other ultraportable and turn it into a 3lb speed demon (which gives out a lot of heat and reduces battery life by a lot, but thats why hes a lunatic).

 

Couple of reasons why I don't see this happening. First, I suspect Intel intends these processors to be used in appliances primarily and very small laptops, where the heat has to be very, very carefully balanced with the cooling system.

Switching out a ULV Celron with a ULV Pentium may sound nice, but could cause the system to over-heat. Granted it'd be the user's fault, but that wouldn't stop people spending hours and hours and hours on the phone with the vendors support (and costing them money).

Second, the volume of business that uses these processors may be so small, that they do not consider developing a socketed version of it a productive use of stockholder's money. Realisticly, 95% (I'm feeling generous) of consumers are more interested in the color of a laptop over whats under the hood.

That said, I wouldn't mind if they sold LV and ULV versions of Core processors so you can upgrade to a cooler proc. But if your expecting them to stop selling devices with those procs soldered on, don't hold your breath.

 

Actually machines with LV's do not need as much cooling as standard ones, so thats defintely not an issue.

Again we are only requesting that they offer them in PGA too, since they offer all their others in BGA & PGA form factors...this benefits consumers and Intel, mnfr's who need or want to solder them on can with the BGA ones and those companies and people who do not want to solder them on can go with PGA.

 

wasting your breath on this one. nice way to rig a pole too - you tied battery and cpu together?

you have to understand why intel does this. low power devices are generally smaller form factor. put in socket and there goes slim. also, it is rare you can upgrade a cpu beyond 2 release points (pentiumM->dothan, core duo-> core duo 2). the upgrade gives you a whopping 5-20% performance increase. given that human perception is logorithimic this advantage would hardly be noticeable. meanwhile upgrading may change thermal and power requirements. you are stuck on old bus, marginalizing your upgrade. stuck on old graphics.

 

I wish it was that cut & dry, if it was I would not be wasting so much time on this matter and Intel would not bother looking at this string that we have already forwarded to them. The cpu's are the same size, just different connections on the ends. The poll is that simple too, battery life/efficiency and future expansions/upgradeability; The LV processors are truly better for us mobile users that want to yield as much battery life as possible without having to use various clocking utilities, such as, RM Clock etc…with BGA connects you have to solder on to the system board, which limits systems expandability. There are many factors on why the PGA connects on our portables are desirable, not only are they more efficient without sacrificing performance, if CPU is to ever fail you do not need to replace entire system board and there are many road warriors out there that are completely satisfied with their current system but need more CPU power after a year or so and replacing entire machine is much more expensive than having the option of just replacing just the CPU, we are not asking Intel to only make them in PGA but to make them both in BGA & PGA just like all the others, so systems that are made with no access to cpu can be solder on, even standard CPU’s are desgined by various manufacturers like such.

Someone earlier in this thread stated this would mostly benefit system builders, quite the contrary, system builders rely on selling new, complete systems, this mostly a benefits customers and Intel, and the more they make in PGA format the prices will get lower, currently Intel does not produce nearly as many LV processors therefore they are about a third more expensive and have to be ordered in trays

 

Thanks for rising this issue and starting this petition.

It is also on several occasions that I faced the problem with the nonupgradability of LV and ULV processors. This fact has also influenced my choice of notebooks and advices I made to others. Actually, the nonupgradability of ULV processors has been delaying my desired notebook upgrade, because the long expected core duo ULV processors have been not available ultill very recently in the most attractive models of ultraportable notebooks with ULV processors, and I didn't want to invest to the non-upgadable configuratiopn with Core Solo only. The same may happen later with the Merom generation of ultraportable notebooks. I think this rather slows down the market and hardly anyone profits from it both on the side of the manufacturers and customers.

 

intel i want to be able to upgrade my laptop

 

I guess I would support having LV and ULV processors in non-embedded applications, but I understand Intel's hesitancy. The yields of these processors are low and the costs are high, especially for the ULV, so I can see why Intel doesn't want to open these processors up to the public. The primary concern is probably the LV since it's performance power is acceptible (there's a new 1.83GHz L2500 Yonah coming out), which means people would easily choose these over regular models. It's not so much a problem for the ULVs since their performance is a lot lower although the power difference is tempting.

I just feel that if the demand is as high as you say it is, which I'm sure it is since I want one too, Intel just can't keep up with supply for the regular boxed retail market. It's only going to get tougher since Merom seems to consume more power than Yonah which is why the LVs are delayed until Q1 2007. Even then the clock speeds are dropping dramatically from 1.83GHz in LV Yonah's to 1.5GHz for LV Merom.

 

I voted yes - Intel should give all users the ability to upgrade if they so wish to do so.

 

I am totally for upgradable LV processors. That's what I wanted to buy recently, and I was willing to pay extra for it. But when Ivan informed me that the processor was not upgradable, I changed my mind and went to the regular model.

As I said, I was willing to pay a premium for the LV model for the power and battery life benefits, and will be willing to do so in the future if Intel releases an upgradable LV Core 2 Duo.

 

Its good for intel and the consumer. Both sides win. The consumer doesnt have to pay for a new system and they buy an intel processor and not dont have to buy a new system. Just like Desktops, The thing in upgrading Laptops is becoming very popular and its growing fast. Many people are buying laptops to replace desktops...and they are getting irritatated and annoyed by not being able to upgrade...so they turn to the Desktop solution. This will boost intel's mobile revunues. This is good for everybody. I agreee with portable one that this should happen....I sure would upgrade my systems in a heartbeat with a new intel processor.

 

Maybe all you guys are overlooking things.....

Maybe BGA is a REQUIREMENT of LV and ULV CPU and not a FEATURE/OPTION??!??!

 

If that was the case than BGA to PGA adapters would not work. But the adapters are very costly and add height which most portable systems do not have any extra space to sacrifice for the adapters and I defintely would have not wasted so much time trying to show Intel that us mobille users want LV in PGA format, that there is I think and even larger demand from us mobile users for the LV processors than the non LV ones, so please offer them in both BGA & PGA Intel...just like all the other mobile processors you make...we all want them in our laptops....

 

Ok... see if you can justify this, please.

You'd like Intel to release PGA formats of their ULV and LV processors. That's fine, but at first glance it seems to me that you have to choose between:

1. Forcing everyone to use a more complex and expensive voltage regulation circuit that can handle a wide range of processor voltages so that the socket doesn't have to be changed - this way people don't get into 'accidents' when they upgrade to a LV/ULV processor from a regular one.

2. Using a unique socket for LV and ULV processors to prevent the above possibilities from happening, forcing economies of scale to go down and, in any case, limiting the market and upgrade possibilities. Typically, you won't see more than 2-3 different LV/ULV processors in each generation, and you can expect to see the sockets change every 2 generations or so anyhow.

Yet another problem would have to do with your thermal solution - you would never be able to go from a LV/ULV PGA CPU to a standard one because the heatsink would almost invariably have been designed with a much lower TDP in mind and therefore it would be inadequate.

As someone has already mentioned, you'd also lose the possibility of shaving an additional 2-3 mm off of the height of the laptop's design.

I like the idea of being able to change to a LV/ULV processor, but I don't think it would be practical or economical except in certain cases...

 

voltage regulation on the system boards are already desgined for such. Yes CPU's and chipsets are always changing, but that does not mean that I cannot upgrade my current 735 processor to a 745, 755 or 765 one, which I can and since I am happy with my current system will most likely do.
The CPU's are the same size just different connecting ends, and for the companies that have height limitations and cannot have a socket on systemboard and need to solder the CPU's on of course can, even the standard CPU's are available in both BGA & PGA formats b because of such.

And LV's run much cooler too, therefore the 'thermal design' problem you mention is not valid, there are a lot of LV's & ULV's that are completely fanless and have no cooling system whatsoever for the CPU because they do not as much cooling as the standard ones.

 

CPU upgradeability is important, but also note that most of the ULV CPUs are used in ultra portable notebooks, and a soldered CPU would be much thinner than a CPU with Socket/PINs.

Yes, upgradeability is important, but don't people like thinner notebooks when you want a ultra portable?

 

here are some pics below so everyone can see that the CPU's are the same size, just different connections. And we are not requesting Intel to make them only in PGA, just requesting that they make both BGA & PGA connections, just like the others, so places and desgins that call to solder them on still can of course...

http://www.laptopsinc.com/p7txpics/LV-size-1.jpg

http://www.laptopsinc.com/p7txpics/lv-size-2.jpg

http://www.laptopsinc.com/p7txpics/lv-size-3.jpg

 

I'm not sure whether you even read what I said.

First... voltage regulation / power circuit - these things are designed to provide a certain maximum amount of power and service a particular range of voltages. This is done to save space, weight, and cost. This means that you likely CANNOT substitute a non ULV/LV processor into a notebook that has ULV/LV.

Of course ULVs run cooler too, and therefore my 'thermal design' problem is just as valid because, as I said in the last message, you'd never be able to change a ULV/LV designed laptop to a regular processor.

Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see the problems (in terms of 'user error') and costs that will come up if they decide to make them all compatible? Ultimately, the end user will pay for it but it's still an investment to be made on their part, and it might not work out. Now, please... try to address these points again... I'm not saying it's not feasible, but you should understand the downsides.

 

I really appreciate your comments, really, I am just trying to let you know that we already addressed these issues with engineers at Intel and contract mnfr's for Intel locally here in the valley and the LV's work perfectly that’s why BGA to PGA adapters work for them in existing like chipset sockets; (tests were conducted on current mobile core duo chips at Paramit using Aries BGA to PGA adapters) but are too expensive of a solution when Intel can simply offer them in both formats like the others, IF THEY SEE A DEMAND FOR THEM. You sound very knowledgeable, so probably already know the mobile system boards and the mobile CPU's are already designed for regulating voltage as needed, stepping up & down per loads etc and there are even 3rd party software programs, such as RM clock where you can regulate FID’s / VID’s further if desired, but Intel’s management built-in to the cpu’s are already great! As for thermal designs they simply run cooler because they do not require as much power (wattage) to run, so if a system is already designed for the non LV cpu’s it will have more than adequate thermal design for the cpu, so customers will notice less fan noise and duration because they run at cooler temps. And again, we are not asking Intel to make them just PGA just to offer them in PGA format too just like the others, because there is a demand for them from us mobile users…of course systems designed for certain requirements can still use the BGA connects to solder them on, all Intel’s mobile processors are offered in such, but Intel has not bothered offering the LV’s in PGA format yet, so we just want to let Intel know that these are more desirable to a lot of us mobile users..

 

Yes, for a reason that I don't think was mentioned already.

For build to order machines, such as the ones offered by P1, Asus, MSI... and specifically the border line slim and light / ultra portable laptops it would be great to be able to use an LV/ULV. So for example a 13" or 12" notebook that has a PGA type and therefore only supports the high end power hungry CPUs currently, if LV/ULVs are offered in PGA, users who would rather get more battery life and less performance (because they might not need the performance for simple office like tasks) can go for an LV/ULV and maybe double their battery life with a standard size battery (no need to buy an extra extended life battery, that looks bad popping out and increases the weight).

It just offers more flexibility for the build to order market IMO.

And since you can upgrade battery life (while downgrading performance), lumping upgradeablity and battery life in the poll question is OK

 

Im also looking for ULV in fcpga design, and so far out of luck.
However, i found this roadmap and here it states that a Celeron M Yonah single core 5.5W is manufactured as fcpga cpu. Is this correct?

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/10...igai309_03l.gif