http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18964

The actual tapeout was in mid-September. It generally takes 9 months to a year to tweak a microproessor for production, so I am guessing that we should see it on the market somewhere between June and Sept of 2005.

Not much is known about Yonah except that it is probably a dual core Dothan, it will be manufactured on a 65nm process, and it uses Intel's arbiter bus to connect the cores.

Because Yonah is based on Dothan, I think that it will unfortunately lack x86-64 support.

Merom, the sucessor to Yonah, is said to have a brand new core based on the x86-64 instruction set and is due in late 2006.

Will it be recompatabile with current P-m's ? Will a processor swap with an older pentium M system be possible

very unlikely... with a 65nm process the Yonah will need a lower core voltage....
I think a new chipset is also necessary with dual-core cpus

I am not really convinced if we need a "Dual Core" processor in a laptop. First, its going to increase the power usage. Then there is not going to be '"dual" chipsets - so the essential parts of the PC are still being shared by both the core. And if I remembered correctly, I read somewhere that the Intel's Dual Core approach will not yield twice the performance increase.

Now, I would really like Intel invest more in improving Laptop Displays, Batteries & other form factors. There's a lot that can be done there...

Just my $0.02

From what I understand, the processor's power management system is able to turn off one of the cores if it is not needed, and switch it back on during intensive tasks. Throughput and overall responsiveness of machines should increase.

I'm also pretty sure Intel is working hard on the other parts of the system. I remember seeing Anand Chandresekhar talking about dynamic backlight controls for LCDs, and I know Intel is pouring a lot of $ into battery and fuel cell technology.

The goal is 8 hours of battery life within the next few years. Personally, I think battery life will only be good enough when I can spend all day at the office without having to even worry about plugging the machine in

Yes, Intel described it as a power-on-demand system, with one core switched off until you need it. So it could be seen as an enhanced version of Speedstep.