IDF It's official: Intel's 'Montevina' incarnation of Centrino will indeed be branded Centrino 2, as expected.

Up to the release of Montevina, due this coming May, there have been four versions of Centrino. But apart from briefly adding the word 'Duo' to the brand, Intel hasn't to date offered any clear indication to consumers that marked a new version of the platform from its predecessors.

Intel's Centrino 5 2 logo

That hasn't played well with notebook vendors and suppliers who have had to fall back on the chip giant's own codenames - 'Santa Rosa refresh', for instance - to differentiate one Centrino generation from another. Clearly, that doesn't tell buyers anything, and laptop makers have been crying out for a new approach that does.

Enter 'Centrino 2', using a simple version number in the tried and trusted way to show product A is generation X and product B is generation Y.

Montevina machines will go out under the Centrino 2 brand. Intel is planning to release some 15 45nm Core 2 Duo processors that tie into its 'Cantiga' chipset, the foundation of Montevina. Cantiga ups the platform's system bus speed to 1066MHz and adds support for DDR 3 memory. As before, Wi-Fi is part of the package, now augmented with WiMax as an optional extra.

Equally optional is the second generation of Intel's Flash cache Turbo Memory technology.

Intel Developer Forum Spring 08 Stories

• Intel rolls out Centrino 2, compares it to 2006's 'Napa' (15 July 2008)
• Intel nudges Centrino 2 debut back (21 May 2008)
• Intel takes chopper to chip prices (22 April 2008)
• IDF Intel demos 'Nehalem' chips clocked to 3.2GHz (3 April 2008)
• IDF Intel touts anti-theft tech for laptops (2 April 2008)
• IDF 'Calpella' named as Centrino 3 (2 April 2008)
• IDF 2010's Centrino Atom to pack 2008 CPU (2 April 2008)
• IDF Intel shows Atom-powered Eee PC clones (1 April 2008)
• IDF Intel launches R&D initiative to invent PDA (1 April 2008)
• Intel demos notebook chiller (15 October 2007)