One of the interesting revelations that came with Apple’s recently-announced (and now shipping!) MacBook Air was that the Cupertino computer maker essentially went to Intel and said “Hey, build us a smaller CPU. What you’ve got isn’t cutting it.” So Intel fabbed a special part just for Apple, a custom-built version of the company’s 65nm Core 2 Duo processor that’s some 60 percent smaller than its standard-sized counterparts and consumes just 20 Watts of power, compared to a typical Core 2 Duo’s 35 Watts. The move marked the first time Intel has built a small form-factor CPU from a standard-size mobile processor.
