Leading notebook vendors, such as Taiwan's Asustek Computer and Acer, and many other international brands, will roll out their new 2-in-1 and ultra-thin notebook models utilizing Intel's eighth-generation Coffee Lake mobile CPUs starting September, to grab a larger market pie in the coming peak season, according to industry sources.

The sources said that while general desktop and notebook PCs suffered the worst shipment records in the second quarter of 2017, market demand for gaming, ultra-thin and 2-in-1 notebooks has stayed relatively stable, prompting Intel to launch new processors for such notebooks and driving notebook brands to turn out new models to cash in on the demand.

On August 21, Intel released its latest, eighth-generation processors, dubbed Coffee Lake, with the first U series designed for 2-in-1 and ultra-thin notebooks, and the company is slated to debut its newest CPUs for desktops in October. Many notebook vendors, such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, Huawei, Samsung, Haier and Tsinghua Tongfang are gearing up for presenting their new notebook models adopting the new processors in September.

Chris Walker, vice president of Intel's Client Computing Group and general manager of Mobility Client Platform, said Intel's eighth-generation Coffee Lake-based U series CPUs for mobile PCs - Core i7-8650U, Core i7-8550U and Core i5-8250U - are not only 40% higher than its seventh-generation models in productivity, but also offer 4K Ultra HD content and allow convenient interactions between users and PCs through durable I/O support, and a battery life of 10 hours.

Tremendous replacement demand

Walker cited a market research report as indicating that up to 450 million PCs now still in use around the world are models rolled out five years ago, constituting tremendous replacement demand. Accordingly, he added, Intel hopes to capture the replacement business by rolling out more powerful CPUs with innovative designs for desktop and notebook PCs, particularly gaming, 2-in-1 and ultra-thin notebooks.

Walker said that with gradual release of Intel's eight-generation family of processors, many PC brands will rush to unveil their new models, which in turn will fuel buying sentiment in the second half of 2017.

While its seventh-generation Kaby Lake series and eighth-generation Coffee Lake series processors are manufactured on a 14nm process, Intel is expected to release the first Cannon Lake-based processors fabricated on a 10nm process by the end of 2017. Walker said that Intel is really at a transition stage in terms of the process architecture adopted for its CPU products, adding that while the 14nm process has already matured, Intel will come out with more products using 10nm process in 2018 to allow more choices for customers.