Without much pomp, Intel expanded its laptop processor lineup with new variants of the Core 2 Duo, the S-Series. These chips use the same small package Intel used in making processors for the Apple MacBook Air and similar compact deployments of the Core 2 Duo. These chips run run at clock speeds between 1.20 and 2.40 GHz. Nomenclature includes a "SP" and "SL" prefixes to a model number of 9400 for the top model and 9300 for the lower one. There's a "SU" prefix for low-cost variants with 3 MB L2 caches and 800 MHz FSB speeds.

The S-series chips and platform core-logic are about 60% smaller than their conventional counterparts, Intel confirms that their transit to the 45 nm silicon fabrication process has made it possible to reduce the package size and also reduce their energy footprint. Lenovo, it seems has already started using the SU 9300 or 9400 parts in its Thinkpad X301 slim form-factor laptops that are aimed to compete with Apple's MackBook air updates. The first picture shows (left to right) the processor, northbridge and southbridge. An extract from the product page shows its models.