Intel teases Haswell chips in fanless tablets by the end of the year

Intel Haswell chips have been able to double the battery life of the newly launched MacBook Air, so the chip maker is moving on to releasing a version for fanless tablets and convertible laptops.

The quiet state of fanless slates will be achieved through a 4.5W Haswell variant scheduled to be available "in the coming months," according to Intel.

Eliminating the hum of noisy fans during intensive processing is just one benefit to a 4.5W Haswell chip.

The world's No. 1 semiconductor company is also aiming to fit the new power-efficient processor into thinner devices without sacrificing CPU performance.

Intel's 6W Haswell CPUs, announced at Computex 2013, are also being used for detachable and convertible hardware, but are more intensive and therefore will require fans for cooling.

Haswell tablet roadmap

Intel wouldn't disclose a release date for its first Haswell 4.5W chips today, noting that the parts will be on the market later this year in limited volumes.

The company has also held off revealing the processor's specs and which manufacturers will be coming out with the most energy-efficient Haswell-equipped tablets to date.

Be that as it may, HP has previous expressed interest in being one of the first device makers out the door with a fanless tablet using Haswell architecture.

We had previously noted that including these 4th generation Core processors would "require some clever design," and making them 4.5W so that they don't need fan cooling should do the trick.

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