INTEL (TICKER: INTC) and Nokia (NOK) announced a strategic alliance to develop Intel architecture-based mobile chips and open-source software. The goal appears to be creating open and standards-based technologies to explore new ideas and products in mobile computing and communications.

Collaborative efforts between the two companies will be centered around these three initiatives: definition of mobile chipset based on Intel architecture; development of open-source software infrastructure such as Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin; and Intel licensing of Nokia's HSPA/3G modem internet protocol ...

What’s in a name? If you’re Intel, there’s plenty of brand equity in names like Atom, Centrino, Core and Pentium. But there’s also a fair share of confusion, too, among consumers and IT buyers.

And so, Intel is planning on revamping its portfolio of brand names, an effort that revolves around a good-better-best format. In a statement, the company said:

…we are focusing our strategy around a primary ‘hero’ client brand which is Intel Core. Today the Intel Core brand has a mind boggling array of derivatives (such as Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, etc). Over time those will go away in its place will be a simplified family of Core processors spanning multiple levels: Intel Core i3 processor, Intel Core i5 processor, and Intel Core i7 processors. Core i3 and Core i5 are new modifiers and join the previously announced Intel Core i7 to round out the family structure. It is important to note that these are not brands but modifiers to the Intel Core brand that signal different features and benefits. For example, upcoming processors such as Lynnfield (desktop) will carry the Intel Core brand, but will be available as either Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 depending upon the feature set and capability. Clarksfield (mobile) will have the Intel Core i7 name.

So glad Intel has taken the complexity out of it. Actually, the company acknowledges that there will be multiple brands in the market next year, including the old names, as the company makes the transition.

Under the Core brand, the i3 represents the entry-level of the Core family, with Core i5 and Core i7 representing the mid-level and high-level products. Celeron will stick around for entry-level computing, Pentium for basic computing and Atom for devices such as netbooks and smartphones. For PCs, think of Celeron being good, Pentium being better and Core being best.

Even Centrino, which came to be synonymous with wireless computing, won’t completely go away. The company plans to transition the name to WiFi and WiMax products next year.

Intel showed what it considers the smallest PC motherboard in the world at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) in Shanghai. The motherboard, or main PC circuit board, will go into the company's next-generation "Moorestown" mobile Internet device (MID) platform due in the 2009-2010 time frame.

"Our engineers have been very hard at work on Moorestown," Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group, said during an IDF keynote speech Wednesday. "The platform design teams have been hard at work in figuring out what is the smallest form factor that they can actually fit a complete PC motherboard into so they can deliver a great mobile Internet experience."

"What I'm holding in my hand is what is possibly the world's smallest PC motherboard," Chandrasekher said. The Moorestown motherboard houses the processor, chipset (including graphics), and memory, along with silicon for 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS, he said. "This is the heart of the new machine."

Moorestown will be Intel's showcase system-on-a-chip, combining the CPU, graphics, and memory controller (and other silicon mentioned above) on a single die. It will likely be the main launching pad for Intel into the mobile phone market--what the chipmaker calls "MID phones." Moorestown may also be a major market for Intel's upcoming solid-state drives.

Intel announced a technology partnership with Nokia that could potentially give the chip maker the breakthrough it has been looking for into the mobile market.

The companies said last night they would work together on a new class of mobile computing devices, but would not say when they would come to market or give details on the kind of wireless products they hoped to develop together.

Analysts saw the pact as strategically important for Intel in the long term because it gains the world's top cellphone maker as a potential client.

But given the lack of details, analysts said it could take one or two years for products to come to market, and it remained to be seen if they would find favour with consumers.

"Intel at least has its foot in the door. It's an important and strategic customer," said Gartner analyst Jon Erensen, who sees the partnership as a way for Intel to get into the market for advanced phones known as smartphones.

However, he added, "You're probably talking about something like 2011 before you get down to the power consumption and integration (levels) you'd need for that kind of device."

Analysts said the deal gives Intel a chance to take on leading cellphone chip makers Qualcomm Inc and Texas Instruments, a big Nokia supplier.

It could also mean stiffer competition for ARM Holdings , which supplies core cellphone processors to both Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, and whose customers rely in part on software from Wind River Systems.

Intel said earlier this month that it would buy Wind River, whose software speeds up and connects devices made by Samsung Electronics, Apple, Hewlett-Packard Co and Motorola.

Intel, whose microprocessors are found in eight out of 10 personal computers, already works with LG Electronics on mobile devices. The agreement with Finland's Nokia, the world's largest cellphone maker, is a bigger step.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini has said that the handheld, embedded and netbook markets would be as important for the company as the PC market in the near future.

Under the agreement, Intel will buy intellectual property from Nokia related to high-speed wireless technology. They also plan to collaborate on open-source mobile Linux software projects, which some analysts say will compete with Google's Android software in the netbook and mobile Internet device (MID) market.

Intel and Nokia said they aimed to define "a new mobile platform beyond today's smartphones, notebooks and netbooks" for hardware, software and mobile Internet services. They stressed the pact was about their technology collaboration and not about specific products.

The LGA1366 interposer (from ASSET InterTech) enables design, test and field repair engineers to access the debug port on the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series and Core i7 processors (based on Intel’s new Nehalem microarchitecture) after the processors have been placed on a circuit board. The LGA1366 interposer’s standard Intel debug port (XDP) header connector enables third-party CPU emulation tools to access the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series and Core i7 processor debug ports, even when a XDP header is not provided on the circuit board. The LGA1366 interposer is available now with pricing starting at $2,900.

The LGA1366 interposer features a direct interface between the CPU on an assembled circuit board and PCT on the ScanWorks platform. The non-intrusive PCT test technology can apply tests, diagnostics, and debug routines to the entire circuit board through the Intel processor without placing physical probes anywhere on the board. Unlike intrusive test technologies like ICT, which require expensive bed-of-nails fixtures for testing circuit boards, PCT on ScanWorks is a non-intrusive technology that relies on software. It tests the electrical integrity of a board and applies functional tests at processor speeds through the CPU’s debug port.

In addition to the enhanced test coverage that ASSET’s interposers and top-side adapters make possible in manufacturing, they can also be applied very effectively in repair operations. Some circuit boards are broken to the point where they cannot launch an operating system (OS) or even the kernel of the OS, the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS). Since most functional test techniques require a running BIOS or OS, traditional functional tests cannot be performed on these circuit boards and they cannot be repaired. Fortunately, ScanWorks’ PCT tests do not require an OS or BIOS. As a result, the precise diagnostics of PCT can locate faults and failures on otherwise dead circuit boards. The manufacturer can then repair these boards and recoup some of the costs associated with them.

Cost and size considerations often cause many circuit board manufacturers to either remove the circuitry required to access the processor’s debug port or to remove the connectors on the circuit board which would link to this circuitry. ASSET’s interposers and top-side adapters overcome this problem for the purposes of the more cost-effective non-intrusive board test technologies such as processor-controlled test (PCT) on ASSET’s ScanWorks platform for embedded instrumentation. In addition to providing a lower cost-of-test, non-intrusive board test (NBT) also offers improved test coverage over the older intrusive test technologies such as in-circuit test (ICT).