Intel Bay Trail: Specs, release date and pricing

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Tablet and 2-in-1 specific chipset set to support Retina displays, Windows/Android & WiDi technology.

What is Bay Trail?

Bay Trail is the codename for Intel's latest Atom range of processors. They will officially be known as the Intel Atom Z3000 family upon launch in Q4 2013.

The Bay Trail chipset is an important milestone for Intel as it looks to compete with ARM products in the tablet market. Based on a System-on-Chip (SoC) design, Bay Trail is built using Intel's Silvermont 22nm micro-architecture. There will be six variants of the chip available with dual and quad-core configurations. Clock speeds will range from 1.8GHz to 2.4GHz as seen below:

Core features of Bay Trail

  • Bay Trail is optimised for use within tablets and 2-in-1 detachable devices. Form factors will range between 7ins to 11ins.
  • Intel touts 2x CPU performance gains over the previous Atom generation.
  • Steve Smith, VP of tablet development at Intel said that users can expect 10 hours of battery life from Bay Trail products.
  • Bay Trail marks the first time Intel has included integrated graphics from its Core i range. The Atom chipset will now ship with Ivy Bridge (3rd Gen Core i) GPU architecture, which Intel claims provides 3x performance increase over the last generation of Atom processors.
  • Intel Burst Technology 2.0 will allow the CPU cores to share power with the GPU core. This will allow Bay Trail devices to decrease CPU frequencies for graphics intensive workloads and allow the GPU to scale up in performance and visa-versa.

Hardware and Software supported

  • Windows (32/64-bit) and/or Android
  • Displays resolutions up to 2500 x 1600 (Retina display)
  • Dual independent displays
  • Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) technology
  • Up to 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM
  • USB 3, HDMI, Displayport, SD card, NFC, 4G, Wi-Fi, GPS
  • Up to 13MP camera on the rear with Zero shutter lag, burst mode, digital video stabilisation, 1080p recording at 60FPS and up to 2MP on the front.
  • DX 11, Open GL 3.0 graphics
  • H.264, VC1, MPEG2, MVC, VP8, MPEG-4/H2.63, MJPEG, HDCP 1.4 & 2.1 codecs

Business features

  • Bay Trail devices will start shipping with Windows 64-bit security support in Q1 2014.
  • Intel noted the firm will provide identity protection in the form of its Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) second factor authentication technology.
  • Bay Trail will support Intel's AES-NI encryption instruction set, which accelerates encryption of data.
  • Intel has also built-in its PlatformTrust Technology. This is a virtual smartcard reader which carries out certificate-based user authentication. Bail Trail devices also ship with McAfee's DeepSafe Ready 3.

Pricing

  • Intel expects tablets sporting its Bay Trail processors to start at $199 going up to around the $500 mark.
  • The 2-in-1 detachables are expected to start at around $400. Ultimately, OEMs will have the final word and will no doubt aim to price their devices competitively against other devices on the market.

Release date

  • Businesses will be able to get Windows 64-bit ready devices starting in Q1 2014.
Khidr Suleman
Khidr Suleman is the Technical Editor at IT Pro, a role he has fulfilled since March 2012. He is responsible for the reviews section on the site  - so get in touch if you have a product you think might be of interest to the business world. He also covers the hardware and operating systems beats. Prior to joining IT Pro, Khidr worked as a reporter at Incisive Media. He studied law at the University of Reading and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism and Online Writing at PMA Training.