Initial Westmere-based laptop chips, code-named Arrandale, could preserve battery life while improving graphics performance. The desktop chips are code-named Clarkdale. The chips are expected to go into production in the fourth quarter this year, though samples have already shipped to laptop and desktop PC makers for testing.

The Westmere architecture is the basis of some of Intel's future laptop and desktop chips, including the Core i3, i5 and 7 chips, wrote Ken Kaplan in a on Intel's Web site on Wednesday.

The chip package's CPU will be made using the advanced 32-nanometer manufacturing process. The graphics processor will be made using the 45-nm process.

Westmere is a process shrink of Intel's current Nehalem microarchitecture, which forms the basis of the existing Core i7 high-end desktop and Xeon 5500 server chips. Nehalem integrates a memory controller with the CPU and provides a fast pipeline for processors and system components to communicate.

Nehalem was a big architectural shift as it was Intel's first microprocessor with an integrated memory controller, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. But early systems based on Nehalem were expensive with prices above US$1,000.