Intel, AMD take battle to new ultra-thin laptops

The world's thinnest laptops, usually the province of executives and the well-heeled, may this year go mainstream thanks to cheaper but still-powerful processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Intel Corp.

AMD got the ball rolling by enabling inexpensive thin laptops early this year. But Intel, with 80 percent of the processor market, may edge out its foe with its Consumer Ultra Low Voltage chip, or CULV, which promises longer battery life, computing power adequate for most, and a recession-friendly price.

The flip side? If the less-pricey ultra-thin form takes off, it may eat into revenue and profit for Intel's and AMD's blazing-fast high-end processors, analysts say.

"It's a pretty substantial threat" to pricing, said Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay. "Any amount of volume it picks up there is going to shift the mix downward."

AMD partnered with Hewlett-Packard Co in January to launch the Pavilion dv2. Intel launched its rival CULV chip this month and Acer Inc and Asustek Computer Inc were among those that demonstrated laptops based on the new technology at the Computex trade show in Taipei.

Their premise? With more people gravitating toward mobile and wireless technology, consumers want smaller laptops -- and most of those people would prefer doing more than surfing the Web, which the no-frills netbooks now excel at.

Most people would never need the unbridled processing power that advanced, larger processors offer, analysts say.

UBS analyst Uche Orji said corporations and gamers would use high-end chips but most consumers would go with Intel's CULV chip.

"This becomes the core of consumer products," said Orji. "Intel's has 30 percent more battery life. Intel's will get up to 8 hours and AMD's we think is up to 5 hours, so Intel has an edge there."