Intel has devised a new way to drastically reduce laptop prices

Intel has revealed new details about its Firefly project, aimed at creating ultra-affordable laptops based on the Wildcat Lake processor generation. According to Nish Neelalojanan, Senior Director of Intel's Client Computing Group, the core idea of the project is to leverage infrastructure currently used in smartphone manufacturing. This allows for a significant reduction in component costs and accelerates the time-to-market for new devices. This is reported by Ixbt.com reports .

Wildcat Lake processors, including the 6-core Intel Core 5 320, have been chosen as the foundation for the upcoming laptops. This CPU features two high-performance and four energy-efficient cores, as well as an iGPU graphics unit with two Xe3 cores. The company has already developed reference designs for the laptops in collaboration with Chinese factories specializing in smartphone production.

One of the showcased prototypes features a metal chassis just 12.9 mm thick and a modern set of ports (two USB-C, one USB-A, and HDMI). To further reduce costs, Intel has developed a new cooling system consisting of a single thin copper heat pipe, as well as a more cost-effective cable design for connecting interfaces to the motherboard.

Another important aspect is that the laptops will use memory modules originally intended for smartphones. Intel experts believe that bringing smartphone industry technologies into the PC world will help reduce laptop production costs several times over.