AMD has introduced its Turion 64 Mobile Technology, bringing the company's 64bit processors to thin-and-light laptops. The firm said that Turion-based laptops will offer similar battery life but better performance than Intel's Centrino technology, and will be the only laptops available this year capable of running the forthcoming 64bit Windows.

Turion 64, first announced in January, was officially launched at the CeBit IT and telecoms trade fair in Hanover late last week. The chip targets the growing thin-and-light segment of the laptop market, while AMD's previous Athlon 64 and Sempron chips target the desktop replacement and budget models.

"Before, buyers had to choose between low-cost desktop-replacement laptops or expensive thin-and-light models. With Turion, we can hit the same price point in both segments," said Patrice David, AMD's marketing manager for mobiles.

David said Turion 64 is the only processor in the thin-and-light segment with 64bit processing capability, and the chip will outpace Intel's Pentium M.

"You'll see a huge benchmark difference versus Centrino laptops," he said. However, he added that Turion-based laptops should still achieve from 2.5 hours to four hours or more of battery life, depending on configuration.

The Turion 64 is available immediately at clock speeds of 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz and 2GHz with 1MB of L2 cache, plus another 1.8GHz speed grade with half a megabyte of L2. Laptops using the chips will be available in the next few weeks from Packard Bell, Acer and Fujitsu-Siemens, according to AMD.

A new naming scheme for the Turion 64 combines letters designating portability with numbers indicating relative performance. An ML-30 chip consumes up to 35W of power at 1.6GHz, but the MT-30 uses only 25W at the same speed, while the ML-37 consumes 35W at 2GHz. Further processors with lower power budgets may be designated MU, MV, MX, or MZ, David said.

Although the Turion 64 Mobile Technology is being cast as a rival to Intel's Centrino platform, AMD said it is working with partners to supply the chipset and wireless components, rather than offer a complete solution as Intel does.

"There is little difference between any Centrino models. What we are doing is enabling laptop makers to offer a choice of VIA, SIS or ULI chipsets and Broadcom or Atheros wireless," said David. He added that this will lead to greater choice for laptop buyers.