Last year, Intel took a decisive technological lead over AMD by manufacturing many of its mobile CPUs with a new 65nm fabrication process while AMD was still churning out less efficient 90nm chips. Thus, one of AMD's first priorities for the coming year will be to refresh its mobile CPU lineup with 65nm parts. At some point in late Q1 or early Q2, AMD will release a new line of 65nm mobile processors under the Turion 64 X2 and Mobile Sempron lines. These CPUs will form the foundation for all future 65nm mobile processors.

Currently code-named "Hawk," these CPUs will sport several new features, including increased thermal efficiency -- AMD is claiming an idle state that consumes 33% of the power that Intel's Core 2 Duos do in idle -- and support for DDR2 800-MHz memory. No details regarding specific model numbers were available at press time.

Not surprisingly, the release of Hawk processors will coincide with the release of a set of mobile chip sets that will offer a batch of new features:

- Support for 800-MHz DDR2 memory

- HDMI display interface support