Some sites have begun rehashing old rumors regarding Pine Trail, the next Intel Atom platform. Word of an early 2010 release began in June, and that rumor is playing out again with the addition of one Atom N470 to the predicted chip lineup.

The newly-whispered N470 is alleged to be a HyperThreaded single core design running at 1.83GHz. If true, it will be little more than a premium version of the N450 which began making the rounds in June.

What we know for certain is that the Netbook market is at a virtual stand-still until the advent of Windows 7 on October 22. While the super secret roadmaps have long pegged Pine Trail for the new year, Windows 7 seems like an awfully auspicious occasion for reeling in the timetable.

Given that both time frames are equally probable, we’re content to watch this one bear out.

Silicon Valley’s favorite journo Fuad Abazovic is upturning rocks in NVIDIA land to reveal details of the firm’s second-gen ION part.

Confirmed in a late February investor presentation, ION’s next generation has been shrouded in secrecy until recent whispers from insiders at big green. The rumors go that the upcoming platform, dubbed ION 2 for now, will undergo a die shrink and bump the shader count from 16 to 32+.

The modifications to the core design of the ION package should considerably boost the ION’s 3D rendering process… Or trigger a deluge of crummy CUDA apps.

That said, ION’s already robust performance will need a sharp kick in the pants if it hopes to contend with Intel’s Pine Trail platform which we prattled on about in June.

Sources within Asia are confirming that next-gen Atom platform, codenamed Pine Trail, is arriving sooner rather than later.

At the heart of the new Pine Trail platform lies the 45nm Lincroft system-on-chip architecture. Leading the show for the Lincroft family is the Pineview processor which carries one or two Atom cores, an integrated memory controller and an on-die GPU. A single-core variant of the Pineview is also in the wings for 1Q10, and it is destined to find a home in a new wave of netbooks.

The Pine Trail platform also contains the Tiger Point platform control hub which will provide USB, PCI Express, SATA and high-definition audio support.

The single-core Pineview Atom for netbooks will be marketed as the Atom N450. The N450’s desktop clone will be sold as the Atom D410, and the dual-core desktop Pineview will be sold as the Atom D510.

Products based on the new platform are expected around the new year.