Intel plans to release a dual-core Atom processor in September, part of a motherboard package that's designed for low-cost desktops, the company said at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

Intel has long been expected to release a dual-core Atom chip, which should give a performance boost to desktop computers that use the chip. Currently, Intel only offers single-core versions of the Atom.

The D945GCLF2 motherboard will include the Atom 330 processor, Intel said, without offering details of the chip, such as clock speed. When released, the official name is likely to be Atom N330, based on the company's product name conventions.

The new motherboard is a Mini-ITX board and, like other Atom-based, systems offers limited features relative to boards used with Intel's mainstream chips. For example, the board has a single memory socket that can support up to 2G bytes of DDR2 (double data rate 2) memory. Most motherboards have two such slots.

Other features include Intel's 945GC Express chipset, with integrated graphics, and a single PCI expansion slot. Pricing for the board was not disclosed.

Intel billed the D945GCLF2 as the second generation of its Atom desktop boards. The first version, the D945GCLF, was unveiled at the Computex exhibition in Taipei and uses the 1.6GHz Atom N230 processor.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.