Intel plans to start staging a series of promotions, dubbed East Fork, by year-end to promote digital-home applications, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers.

Through East Fork, Intel will promote its next-generation desktop-use CPUs, core-logic chipsets and wireless chips as a platform, much as it did with its Centrino platform for notebooks, said the sources. The platform will be launched in the second half of 2005.

The East Fork campaign is also intended to promote the development of digital-home applications through Intel's cooperation with IT makers and vendors, with the company noting that it has already signed on 50 partner companies, said the sources.

Intel will also promote its next-generation digital-home PCs, called DH EF PCs, and the company has set up an ?Intel Digital Home Fund,? which will provide financial assistance to companies that develop and manufacture products that meet the specifications set forth under the East Fork campaign, said the sources.

However, Intel may also require the companies to use the company's next-generation Prescott processors, as well as its Lakeport chipsets (to be introduced in the second half of 2005) and its networking chipsets, including the Ekron 10/100 and Tekoa Gigabit Ethernet chips. In addition, Intel will utilize its Calexico 2 wireless chip, which supports 802.11a/b/g technology, to manufacture the DH EF PCs, the sources noted.

From DigiTimes