Intel Core i7 (Nehalem) Architecture Overview

Core 2 Duo sparked something of a revolution for Intel. Here at the end of 2008, the average consumer probably won't remember the bleak days of Netburst and Pentium 4 when AMD's K8 Architecture and Athlon 64 chips reigned supreme. Core 2 Duo and Quad brought brilliant performance at compelling price points, and consequently swung the balance well and truly back in Intel's favour. So, it has to be said that Nehalem, Intel's successor to Core 2, has some big shoes to fill.
Intel's last generation of CPUs, built on the Core Microarchitecture (codenamed Conroe), and subsequently enhanced using a 45nm process (codenamed Penryn) are, let's face it, fast enough for all but the most demanding of corporate consumers so there's no compelling argument for a successor to be unleashed.
Moreover, AMD's Phenom processors can't compete with Penryn chips on performance so it can't be argued that Intel is usurping the competition, either. Because it isn't. So, thus it is that I'm left with the inevitable conclusion that Intel is simply doing its best to prove Gordon Moore (who's theory states that the number of transistors in integrated circuits will double every couple of years) right, and cram yet more transistors into its CPUs. Not, I hasten to point out, that there is necessarily anything wrong with that strategy. And let's face it, we'd all rather be questioning whether we need the power of a new generation of chips, than complaining that our current hardware isn't fast enough.
It's not as if Intel isn't happy to disclose the way its development cycle is set to manifest to the public, at least in broad terms. From what we know thus far, the current Tick/Tock development cycle is set to continue until at least 2012 with a microarchitecture known only as Haswell. Each tick marks a shrinking and refinement of the manufacturing process while each tock will introduce a brand new architecture; all on a two year cycle.
Nehalem, then, is the tock to follow the tick that was Penryn and there's a lot to be excited about. Not least because Nehalem is probably the most fundamental architecture revision Intel has made in some 13 years. Anyone with a passing interest in Nehalem will know by now that this is the first mainstream Intel CPU to drop the front-side bus in favour of the Common System Interface, or Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) and, in doing so, bring the memory controller on-die.
Intel's critics may want to label that as Intel copying AMD, but I'm not sure I'd agree with such a view. The company proved with Core it's actually quite easy to make a fast processor without an integrated memory controller as you can, to an extent, hide the performance deficiencies inherent therein by doing things like adding masses of extra on-die cache. Enough of that for now, because I'll be talking in detail about Nehalem and RAM later.
Integrating a memory controller isn't all Intel has done with Nehalem, though. The only useful development (call me controversial if you will) of Intel's Pentium 4/Netburst era, simultaneous multithreading, makes a return too. That's right, folks, HyperThreading is back with a vengeance. Thus, each Nehalem core is capable of executing two threads at any one time.
Finally Intel has also given Nehalem some pretty cool power management features. There's a big focus not only on saving power, but also on making the best use of the power being drawn by the CPU.

Intel Core i7 chip reviews arrive

Intel's Core i7 processor will first appear in fast gaming desktop PCs, as reviews arrive confirming its speed advantage over the Core 2 architecture.
The first comprehensive reviews hit Monday leaving little doubt that Intel's Nehalem chip architecture will greatly surpass anything Intel offers now.
Reviews cover the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition used with Intel's "SmackOver" motherboard, aka the DX58SO Extreme.
Core i7 processors expected to launch later this month include 2.66GHz (Core i7-920) and 3.20GHz (Core i7-965) versions. Prices will range roughly between $285 and just under $1,000.
What is Nehalem/Core i7 exactly? The architecture will scale from two to eight processor cores, have faster chip-to-chip communication (Intel calls this technology QuickPath), do a better job of adjusting performance levels to suit power needs, and have a higher level of integration (more logic will be built directly onto the processor die).
Other salient features include more scalable memory (each processor will have its own dedicated memory), the ability to do more stuff simultaneously (up to 16 threads with simultaneous multi-threading), and new instructions to increase efficiency (called SSE4.2 instructions).
And who's going to buy i7 systems initially? Here's what CNET Reviews editor Rich Brown says: "We don't expect mainstream users will adopt Core i7...at first, at least until the motherboard prices come down."
Brown continues: "In the short term, it will benefit gamers and digital media types. The initial systems will be gaming oriented."
The usual suspects will bring out boxes. Gateway, Dell's Alienware unit, and HP's Voodoo brand are expected to announce systems. But this won't happen until later in November when the i7 is officially rolled out by Intel.
The i7 identifier will apply to the first crop of high-end desktop processors. Other identifiers will come later that will complement the i7. There will be a separate black logo for the highest-end offering called the Extreme Edition. Model numbers will differentiate each chip.

Intel Core2 Quad Q9300

Intel’s Core 2 Q9300 processor is fabricated using the 45nm Penryn process that we first saw in Benny's review of the Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650, which is a lovely CPU if you don't mind forking out £480. Thankfullly, the Penryn process is also used in more down-to-earth CPUs such as the dual core E8500, which is where things get interesting for most of us.
When we reviewed the E8500 in March 2008 it had a price of £182 but since then we’ve seen a surprising amount of price compression among the Intel dual cores. The 3.16GHz E8500 has dropped to £123, the 3.0GHz E8400 is £110 and the 2.66GHz E8200 is priced at £106. Who the heck would buy a £106 processor when you can get the next speed bump for only £4 more?

This reduction in price for the Wolfdale dual core Penryns leaves the £150+ price bracket open for affordable Yorkfield quad core processors which is where the Core 2 Quad Q9300 comes into the equation. It has a relatively slow clock speed of 2.50GHz which is achieved by a 7.5x multiplier and a 333MHz/1,333MHz front side bus which is matched by a price of £173. Now that’s cheap for a Yorkfield as faster models shoot past £200 and head for £390 with the Q9550 and upwards to £480 for the aforementioned QX9650.
Things aren’t entirely as they might appear, though, as most Yorkfields have 12MB of L2 cache with 6MB for each core while the Q9300 only has 6MB with 3MB per core. The rest of the features are just as you’d expect from a Penryn which is a significant advance from the 65nm Kentsfield including support for the SSE4.1 instruction set. The move to the 45nm process has allowed Intel to reduce the core voltage from a nominal 1.3V to 1.2V, which in turn reduces the TDP from 105W to 95W.

This leads us to wonder how the Q9300 compares with the Core 2 Q6600 which is our absolute favourite processor in the whole of overclockdom. We’ve had our sample of Q6600 for the best part of a year and it’s done sterling service overclocking from its standard speed of 2.4GHz to the dizzy heights of 3.4GHz. Scour the web and the Q6600 crops up time and time again as a champ of a processor and its appeal isn’t hurt one little bit by price cuts that have taken it below £120. Indeed, Intel is taking the fight to the 65nm AMD Phenom by slashing the prices of its own 65nm models and Q6600 is in the thick of that particular battle. Moreover, the Q6600 wipes the floor with Phenom; period.
So, with AMD out of the equation, with the Q9300 we wanted to know how the £117 Q6600 compares to this new £173 chip. For starters, and most obviously, you get an extra 100MHz with Q9300 but that’s certainly not worth an extra £56.

VIA Nano Vs. Intel Atom

Based on the largely positive reaction there has been to the recent deluge of netbooks and nettops that use Intel's low cost and low power Atom CPU, it would be fair to assume Intel has these markets all sewn up. However, while Intel certainly has the PR budget and manufacturing capacity to spread the word and flood the market with these devices, it doesn't necessarily have the best low cost, low power CPU. At least that's what VIA would like us to believe.
Announced around the same time as Intel's Atom, VIA's new Nano CPU is widely reported to be faster than Atom yet draw only slightly more power (dependent on clock speed). Indeed VIA has been claiming Nano can even run Crysis and playback Blu-ray video.
On top of this VIA also has its OpenBook Mini-Note reference design, which is essentially exactly the same as the netbooks we've come to know and love but with a Nano CPU inside. So, it would seem there's set to be quite a battle over the next few months to see which is the superior low power, low cost platform.
With this in mind, we've been pestering VIA for quite a while to let us have a play with Nano and a couple of weeks ago it came good, sort of. Rather than the shiny OpenBook mini-notebook we were expecting, VIA actually provided us with a mini-ITX desktop platform.
So, a little disheartened we went away and collected up a similar Intel Atom based mini-ITX motherboard, courtesy our chums over at bit-tech, and set about seeing just what these budget CPUs are capable of.
Now, we understand that for notebooks and other mobile devices, ergonomics and battery life can be rather more significant than CPU performance, at least up to a certain point. But unfortunately, those are obviously both things we can't test directly here. However, what we can do is see how much power these desktop platforms draw during our testing and extrapolate a performance/power ratio for the two CPUs, which should give us some idea of potential battery life.
Also, in our reviews of the various netbooks we've seen so far, we haven't gone into much detail about performance, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to see just what you can and can't do on netbooks

Intel Slam slow iPhone ARM CPU

Any speed shortcomings in Apple's iPhone were the fault of its rival chipset manufacturer ARM, a senior Intel executive said in Taiwan yesterday.
"The shortcomings of the iPhone are not because of Apple," Intel's director of ecosystems for its ultra-mobility group Pankaj Kedia said at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei, Taiwan. "The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM."
The comment followed statements from Shane Wall, Intel's VP, mobility group and director strategic planning, platform architecture and software, ultra-mobility group, on the device's lack of oomph. "Any sort of application that requires any horse power at all and the iPhone struggles," he said.
He said that although Apple did try to tackle the Internet and achieved a massive buzz due to, according to Wall, great user interface and Apple chief Steve Job's ability to sell, the hyped device fell short in a number of areas.
Kedia did not just stop at the iPhone, claiming ARM was a malaise afflicting smartphones in general. "The smartphone of today is not very smart," he said. "The problem they have today is they use ARM."
The discussion came after Wall's keynote. "If you want to run full Internet, you're going to have to run an Intel-based architecture," he had said, claiming that Intel processors achieved two to three times the performance of ARM equivalents.
Wall believed the situation was unlikely to change anytime soon, saying Intel was two years ahead of the rival company. He did not believe fast, full Internet would receive a debut with ARM-based devices in the near future. "Even if they do have full capability, the performance will be so poor

Intel Encourages More Youth to Participate in Math and Science

$120 Million Global Investment for Science Competitions, Youth Outreach, Online Science Community
Intel Corporation is committing $120 million over the next 10 years to stimulate more interest among youth in math and science, so they will be prepared to address global challenges in innovative ways. The funding from the Intel Foundation for its long-time science competition partner Society for Science & the Public supports the company's historical commitment to the Intel Science Talent Search and Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The support also adds a robust youth outreach program plus an online science community and science fair alumni network which includes a mentoring component.
Intel's new commitment, announced today at the US News and World Report Education Summit at the National Press Club, was coupled with a national challenge to states to send more young people to the science competitions that support tomorrow's innovators. In 2008, only 19 states had finalists participate in the Intel Science Talent Search.
"I can't think of a more critical time to invest in math and science education," said Will Swope, Intel's vice president and general manager, Corporate Affairs Group. "We will work with districts, schools and teachers around the world to help get students excited and engaged in math and science -- subjects that provide the foundation for innovation."
In 2008, Intel Science Talent Search finalists represented 35 U.S. high schools. New York sent 15 students, followed by Pennsylvania with four and Texas with three.
International student participation in the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair, which is currently at about 30 percent, will be increased in part through an outreach program with student research programs at its core. The online scientific community that will be created will encourage networking, as well as host an alumni network of past science competition participants, who will provide mentoring to new and hopeful scientists.
Society for Science & the Public (SSP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to public engagement in scientific research and education, owns and has administered the Science Talent Search since its inception in 1942 and International Science and Engineering Fair since 1950. Elizabeth Marincola, president of SSP, said, "This remarkable commitment by Intel, and its longstanding partnership with SSP, advances substantially our goal to promote science education and to engage the public in science, on which the health of our nation and the global community depend."
The $120 million is the largest single commitment in the history of the Intel Foundation. It extends its title sponsorships of the Intel Science Talent Search, which began in 1998, through 2016, and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which began in 1996, through 2019. These competitions are just one aspect of Intel's annual investment of more than $100 million to improve education and technology literacy around the world. Intel has invested over $1 billion and Intel employees have donated over 2 million hours in the past decade alone toward improving education in 50 countries.
To learn more about Intel's commitment to education around the world, visit www.intel.com/education and to join Intel's community of people inspired by education, visit www.inspiredbyeducation.com. To learn more about Society for Science & the Public

Intel,ASUS Launch Project to Create Community-Designed PCs

At WePC.com, Consumers Spark Global Conversations to Dream Up the Ideal Notebook, Netbook and Gaming PCs
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 29, 2008 - Consumers become product designers at WePC.com, a Web site launched today by Intel Corporation and ASUS. WePC.com is where consumers can collaborate with each other and with Intel and ASUS to design innovative new products. The plan is for the two companies to deliver to market what could be the world's first community-designed PCs.
WePC.com will enable a global conversation about the ideal elements of PCs. Visitors to the site can share ideas, vote on submitted concepts and engage in discussions with other community members about the qualities of the "dream" PC.
"Intel believes the spark for innovation can come from anywhere," said Mike Hoefflinger, general manager of Intel's Partner Marketing Group. "That's why Intel is working with ASUS to tap into the creative energy of consumers as they share ideas on designing their ideal PC. Intel is committed to encouraging conversations with consumers and giving people a voice in the design of technology they use every day."
"ASUS and Intel have created WePC.com in an effort to bridge innovation and technology with consumers' wishes," said Lillian Lin, director of ASUS' Marketing Planning Division. "ASUS strives to provide the best user experience with our products. By empowering WePC.com users to play a role in the design process, we expect to deliver cutting-edge community-designed products that address a consumer vision of the dream PC."
The community will be divided into three conversation groups, addressing three of the most popular consumer PC categories: netbooks, notebooks and gaming notebooks. Intel and ASUS hope to bring to market a consumer-inspired product that simplifies and enhances computing needs with Intel and ASUS technology in each category. The PCs will be powered by Intel® Atom™, Intel® Centrino® 2 and Intel® Centrino® 2 Extreme processors.
Prizes will be rewarded to select participants for their creative role in this project. Details on prizes will be announced at a later date.
About IntelIntel (NASDAQ: INTC), the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com.
About ASUSASUS is a leading company in the new digital era. With a global staff of more than eight thousand and a world-class R&D design team, the company's revenue in 2007 was 6.9 billion U.S. dollars. ASUS ranks among the top 10 IT companies in BusinessWeek's "InfoTech 100," and has been on the listing for 11 consecutive years.

Intel unveils new cooling tech for ultrathin laptops

Intel wants a laptop to live up to its name.
A computer that sits comfortably, coolly on your lap. The world's largest chipmaker expects a crush of ultrathin laptops from PC makers in 2009 and unveiled cooling technology this week to make sure these svelte air-flow constrained designs stay cool.
To date, cooling technology has focused on keeping the internal components from getting too hot but not the outside of the computer, according to Mooly Eden, general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei this week. Eden's keynote was streamed from the event.
"When you design a very thin system, cooling the skin is a very big challenge," said Eden. "If you put (a laptop) on your lap, it can feel very uncomfortable. Very hot." This is one of the biggest hurdles to designing an ultrathin laptop like the MacBook Air or HP Voodoo Envy 133.
If this problem isn't solved, laptops "can't be made thinner and thinner," he said.
Eden showed an animation of a jet engine to prove his point. The inside of a jet engine can get as hot as 1,000 degrees centigrade. But the jet engine's wall must be kept cool because it is connected to the wing where the fuel is. To keep the engine heat away from the wing, laminar air flow cooling is used.
A laminar flow occurs when a fluid--or air in this case--flows in parallel layers.
Intel demonstrated a system using the same laminar air flow technology to move the heat off a laptop's skin. "We are licensing it to our customers so they can keep making thinner and thinner laptops," Eden said.
Intel also revisited the next-generation Calpella laptop platform (due in the second half of 2009) based on its Nehalem technology. Eden reiterated that the graphics and memory controller would be integrated onto the same piece of silicon as the processor.
He also discussed how additional transistors in Nehalem can switch cores on and off, depending on how processor-intensive the application is. This will be critical in a quad-core Calpella laptop to deliver acceptable battery life. (Eden intimated that Calpella quad-core laptops would be common.)
For instance, three of the cores can be shut down to save power when the user is doing tasks that don't require a lot of compute power. Then more cores can be turned on depending on the need.
This is done "automatically on the fly. It is transparent to the operating system," Eden said.
He also talked about "Hyperthreading" or simultaneous multithreading on Nehalem--the ability to run two program threads simultaneously per each core, doubling the number of threads and, Intel claims, obviating the need for eight cores. "We could have done eight cores. We know how to do it. But it would have been too hot," he said.

AMD to Release Atom Rival in November

While AMD prepares two processors for cation, Intel plans to launch dual-core Atom next month
It seems that AMD is finally determined to make a move against Intel's Atom processor. While the chip giant is said to release the first dual-core Atom sometime in October, the Sunnyvale company decided to make available as of November 65 nm Athlon microprocessors that would target the same market area as Intel’s. The Athlon 2650e and the dual-core Athlon X2 3250e, both paired with the AMD 740 chipset, are the products we're talking about.
The Atom processor was designed by Intel for the netbook market, and, besides VIA's Nano, the chip had no real competitor on that area. Nano didn't do too great as a competitor to Intel's CPU, that should be admitted, and AMD was a little late with developing a product suitable for this area of the mobile PC market. The situation is about to change, at least this is what slides published on CHW suggest.The Sunnyvale chip maker is aiming at a so called “ultra value client” (UVC) segment of the market with the two processors stated for release in about two months. The Athlon X2 3250e runs at 1.5GHz core frequency and comes with 1MB L2 cache, while Athlon 2650e features a 1.6GHz core clock and 512KB L2 cache. The TDP of the processors is nevertheless a little too high if compared to the 2-watts-or-less Atom with Silverthorne core or even with the cheaper 4-watt version with Diamondville core, namely 22W for the dual core and 15W for the 2650e processor.What is interesting enough is that AMD is rather going for the so called nettops area than aiming at the netbook market. The nettops are quite cheap desktops which can be used mainly as Internet computers but can serve as cloud computing devices as well. The prices for the new chips are expected to range from $40 to $50, yet this may still be a problem for AMD, as Intel has its Diamondville available for $23 and $44, and it can go even lower, as the production costs rise only to $6.In the meantime, Intel will have its first dual-core Atom processor with Diamondville core, and some netbook manufacturers have already confirmed October as the timeframe of the release. Detailed specifications and pricing have not been revealed yet.

Intel's Xeon 7400 Processor May Come Next Week

The latest news on Intel unveiled the fact that the company plans to release its six-core ‘Dunnington’ processor at the VMWorld conference in Las Vegas, next week. The new chip is said to be the last one on the Penryn line; it will
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be manufactured on the 45nm fabrication process and will be officially known as Xeon 7400. This new CPU will come with 16 MB of L3 cache and will also feature 3 MB of L2 cache for each pair of cores (9MB in total). The TDP rating of the Xeon 7400 chip will be 130W, according to Intel.The new Dunnington will need an external memory controller, the same as Intel's current line of processors, yet the company is confident that the large cache size the CPU features will help it get over any memory limitation. The giant chip manufacturer will release its first models of the next-generation Nehalem processors in the fourth quarter, which will feature an integrated memory controller supposed to solve memory bottlenecks.The Xeon 7400, as well as other upcoming Intel chips, will feature all cores on a single piece of silicon. The current family of processors feature multiple cores shaped into one package. This differs from AMD's approach, which has monolithic processors, yet Intel got to the market faster this way. Although there are voices that shout against Intel's technology, there are few users that really care how the CPU is made as long as it works just fine.The Dunnington chip is designed for the blade/server market, and this explains why Intel would have it released at VMWare’s VMWorld conference. As the virtualization of operating systems catches more and more ground these days, with one OS running inside another OS, the new processor will most likely attract many of the system administrators attending the show.

Intel to Detail 32nm Process Technology at IEDM

Intel's current desktop and laptop processors are built using a 45nm process technology, which enables the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker to create faster and more energy efficient computer processors. However, the company is expected to release next-generation chips, built using a 32nm process technology, which it could even detail at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), in mid-December 2008. The first 32nm-based chips were showcased back in 2007 but, at the time, the company did not specifically detail the process itself. According to recent information, Intel is expected to unveil specifics of its 32nm chips at IEDM, although a document posted event-dedicated website already provides several details on the process. Some of the features brought about by Intel's 32nm manufacturing process include the company's second-generation high-k/metal gate technology, a strained channel and nine levels of low-k interconnect dielectrics. According to the aforementioned paper, cited by EE Times, Intel built a functional 32nm, 291-Mbit SRAM array test chip with a cell size of 0.171-micron2. The device could house nearly 2 billion transistors, and boasted and array density of 4.2-Mbit2. Apparently, the chip managed to operate at 3.8GHz, at 1.1 Voltage.

The process is claimed to enable the highest drive currents reported to date for 32nm manufacturing technology
The leading chip maker is said to be planning the commercialization of its 32nm process technology next year. The node will apparently allow the company to enter the market for ultra-low power x86 microprocessors designed for handsets. It will also enable Intel to design processors that come with a built-in graphics core, as well as higher-performance CPUs that can be offered at much more competitive price-points.
Given that it’s been a while since Intel first demonstrated the 32nm SRAM+logic test chips, this can only make users wonder if the company isn't already hammering away at working samples of 32nm-enabled microprocessors.

AMD: Not Violating Intel Cross-Licencing Agreements

After AMD announced its split into The Foundry Company (in collaboration with ATIC) and a leaner, hopefully meaner, CPU and GPU design outfit last week, Intel's Chuck Mulloy commented that the company had some concerns. AMD's Phil Hughes, speaking to eWeek, has countered such allegations, saying that AMD is not violating any agreement with Intel. We are completely confident the structure of this transaction takes into account our cross-license agreements,? commented Hughes. ?Rest assured ? we plan to continue respecting Intel?s intellectual property rights, just as we expect them to respect ours.?
However, Hughes also said that, while AMD is confident it isn't violating its cross-licensing agreement with Intel "it's a business document and we are not going to negotiate this in the press or the media". "This is something that the lawyers have to work out."
It seems likely, then, that the majority of interaction in this matter is going to be out of the public domain - although inevitably we'll find out the end result of any discussion between the companies. If AMD is violating the license, current speculation is that the two companies would reach some manner of agreement as regards AMD's anti-trust case against Intel.

Intel Details Upcoming New Processor Generations

Marking the next step in Intel's "tick-tock" product strategy and cadence to deliver a new process technology with an enhanced microarchitecture or entirely new microarchitecture every year, Intel Corporation will begin producing its next-generation Penryn family of processors in the second half of this year. These new processors benefit from enhancements to the Intel® Core™ microarchitecture and also Intel's industry-leading 45nm Hi-k process technology with its hafnium-based high-K + metal gate transistor design, which results in higher performance and more energy-efficient processors.
Intel has more than 15 45nm Hi-k product designs in various stages of development, and will have two 45nm manufacturing fabs in production by the end of the year, with a total of four in production by the second half of 2008 that will deliver tens of millions of these processors. Below are many of the details of the Penryn processor family and a glimpse into some of the key features of Intel's future generation of processors, codenamed Nehalem.
PENRYN FAMILY MICROARCHITECTURE INNOVATIONS
A Range of Products -- Six Penryn family processors, including dual- and quad-core desktop processors and a dual-core mobile processor are all under the Intel Core processor brand name as well as new dual- and quad-core server processors under the Intel® Xeon® processor brand name. A processor for higher-end server multiprocessing systems is also under development. As previously noted, Intel already has a total of 15 45nm products scheduled.
Technical Marvel -- 45nm next-generation Intel® Core™2 quad-core processors will have 820 million transistors. Thanks to our high-k metal transistor invention, think of 820 million more power efficient light bulbs going on and off at light-speeds. The dual-core version has a die size of 107mm2, which is 25 percent smaller than Intel's current 65nm products - and quarter of the size of the average U.S. postage stamp - and operate at the same or lower power than Intel's current dual-core processors.
Deep Power Down for Energy Savings, Improved Battery Life -- The mobile Penryn processor has a new advanced power management state called Deep Power Down Technology that significantly reduces the power of the processor during idle periods such that internal transistor power leakage is no longer a factor. This helps extend battery life in laptops. This is a major advancement over previous generation industry-leading Intel mobile processors.
Intel Dynamic Acceleration Technology Enhanced Performance for Single Threaded Apps -- For the mobile Penryn processor, Intel has enhanced the Intel® Dynamic Acceleration Technology available in current Intel Core 2 processors. This feature uses the power headroom freed up when a core is made inactive to boost the performance of another still active core. Imagine a shower with two powerful water shower heads, when one shower head is turned off, the other has increased water pressure (performance).
Speeding Up Video, Photo Imaging, and High Performance Software -- Penryn includes Intel® Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 (SSE4) instructions, the largest unique instruction set addition since the original SSE Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). This extends the Intel® 64 instruction set architecture to expand the performance and capabilities of the Intel® architecture.
Other Technical Features to Improve Performance
Microarchitecture Optimizations -- Increases the overall performance and energy efficiency of the already leading Intel Core microarchitecture to deliver more instruction executions per clock cycle, which results in more performance and quicker PC responsiveness.
Enhanced Intel® Virtualization Technology -- Penryn speeds up virtual machine transition (entry/exit) times by an average of 25 to 75 percent. This is all done through microarchitecture improvements and requires no virtual machine software changes. Virtualization partitions or compartmentalizes a single computer so that it can run separate operating systems and software, which can better leverage multicore processing power, increase efficiency and cut costs by letting a single machine act as many virtual "mini" computers.
Higher Frequencies -- Penryn family of products will deliver higher overall clock frequencies within existing power and thermal envelopes to further increase performance. Desktop and server products will introduce speeds at greater than 3GHz.
Fast Division of Numbers – Penryn-based processors provide fast divider performance, roughly doubling the divider speed over previous generations for computations used in nearly all applications through the inclusion of a new, faster divide technique called Radix 16. The ability to divide instructions and commands faster increases a computer's performance.
Larger Caches -- Penryn processors include up to a 50 percent larger L2 cache with a higher degree of associativity to further improve the hit rate and maximize its utilization. Dual-core Penryn processors will feature up to a 6MB L2 cache and quad-core processors up to a 12MB L2 cache. Cache is a memory reservoir where frequently accessed data can be stored for more rapid access. Larger and faster cache sizes speed a computer's performance and response time.
Unique Super Shuffle Engine -- By implementing a full-width, single-pass shuffle unit that is 128-bits wide, Penryn processors can perform full-width shuffles in a single cycle. This significantly improves performance for SSE2, SSE3 and SSE4 instructions that have shuffle-like operations such as pack, unpack and wider packed shifts. This feature will increase performance for content creation, imaging, video and high-performance computing.

Intel: Spintronic CPUs at least 10 years away

Alternative methods of radically increasing the performance of CPUs, such as spintronics, will not find their way into production for at least another 10 years, Intel said this week in Taiwan.
Until now, computer processors have operated by using the binary on/off characteristic of electrons. However, the angular momentum of the electrons can be used, as well as the direction of that momentum, with the potential to increase the performance and capacity of chips.
However, over the next decade or so the focus will remain on incremental and more mundane improvements to get smaller and more efficient chips, according to Intel senior fellow and director communications technology lab, Kevin Kahn, who was speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei yesterday.
This is because the changes are better understood and relatively quantifiable as well as cheaper and more effective to deploy, Kahn said.
"We will push existing technology architectures as long and hard as we can because we know how to do them," he said, adding that a step-change such as using spin required a large amount of planning to be able to work with existing products: "No matter how hard you push on the new ones, it'll be a while."
The comments followed a futuristic keynote, in which Kahn detailed what humans could do to make computers smarter, perhaps heading toward a Terminator-like reality where computers outperformed their human counterparts.
He spoke about possible improvements in materials going into chips, as well as spintronics. He then moved onto sensors and actuators, displaying a robot which used an electronic field to sense when objects were near. The pre-touch had a shorter range than vision, but a longer range than touch, Kahn said.
The robot was able to take a dragon fruit without crushing it and hand it to Kahn. "You begin to believe that robot's alive," he said of the way it tracked his hand. "It's a very loose kind of following. It's like it's sniffing your hand out."
An actuation method he showed used sound. Sound, and not a fan, was generating the force that pushed a blue slip of paper upwards.
If receivers were built into mobile devices, and transmitters in specific spaces, whenever receivers were in range, they could automatically charge the devices, Kahn said.
The most unusual thing Kahn described was programmable matter, or small units that moved relative to one another to form objects, changing the form of devices or helping with computer simulations so operators can simply push or pull a design to make changes.
Current research in the area was using magnets or electrostatic forces, Kahn said, adding that, for him the idea was "in the space of magic".

Intel server revamp to follow AMD

Intel is getting ready to introduce a chip communications technology that mirrors an approach central to recent successes of rival Advanced Micro Devices.
If Intel's newly competitive chips recently brought to market act as the brains of a server, then the Common System Interface (CSI) is its nervous system. The technology, set for release in 2008, provides a new way for processors to communicate with each other and with the rest of a computer.
And alongside CSI, Intel plans to release an integrated memory controller, which is housed on the main processor rather than on a separate supporting chip. This will speed memory performance and so dovetail with the new communications system, the company expects.
Together, they could help Intel provide a much-needed counterpunch to AMD, which in 2003 introduced an integrated memory controller and a high-speed interconnect called HyperTransport in its Opteron and Athlon 64 processors. The two communication technologies, marketed together as "Direct Connect Architecture," deliver lower processor costs and chip performance advantages, which AMD has used to win a place in the designs of all of the big four server makers.
"Intel is hoping CSI will do for them in servers what 'CSI' did for CBS in ratings," said Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood, referring to the hit TV series "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
Intel has been tight-lipped about CSI. However, Tom Kilroy, general manager of the company's Digital Enterprise Group, did confirm some details in a recent CNET News.com interview. Further glimpses have come from server makers, who are eager for CSI's debut in the "Tukwila" Itanium chip, due in 2008.
Tracking CSICSI brings two major changes. First, it will boost processor performance compared with Intel's current chip communication technology, the front-side bus.
"From a pure performance perspective, when we get to Tukwila and CSI, and we actually get some of the benefits of that protocol introduced into our systems, I think it's going to be really a big deal," said Rich Marcello, general manager of HP's Business Critical Server group.
CSI will be instrumental in helping double the performance of the Tukwila generation of servers, he noted.
Second, CSI will help Itanium server designers take advantage of mainstream Xeon server technology. Both chip families will use the interface, Kilroy said. That's particularly useful for companies such as Unisys, whose servers can use both processor types. It will make it possible for elements of a design to be used in both kinds of machine, reducing development costs and speeding development times.

Apple hires top IBM chip designer

One of IBM's top chip executives has agreed to join Apple as a senior executive, but he might have to fight off his former employer first.
Mark Papermaster, until recently IBM's vice president of microprocessor technology development, plans in to join Apple early November in a position that will see him working closely with Apple CEO Steve Jobs in what IBM believes is an attempt to expand Apple's presence in the markets for servers and chips for handheld devices, according to the copy of a lawsuit filed by IBM against Papermaster. IBM is suing Papermaster to prevent him from joining Apple and divulging trade secrets related to IBM's Power chips and server products, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Papermaster has authored several papers on chip development at IBM, which of course used to make PowerPC processors for Apple before the company switched to Intel's processors in 2005. IBM called Papermaster "IBM's top expert in Power architecture and technology", and his most recent position involved managing IBM's blade server division.
An Apple representative declined to comment on the lawsuit or confirm Papermaster's pending employment with the company. IBM issued this statement: "Mr. Papermaster's employment by Apple is a violation of his agreement with IBM against working for a competitor should he leave IBM. We will vigorously pursue this case in court."
If Papermaster is able to successfully join Apple, he'll be working closely with Apple CEO Steve Jobs "providing to Apple technical and strategic advice on a variety of issues," according to IBM's complaint. But which issues?
Apple's Xserve servers have not exactly been a high priority over the last couple of years, as Apple has switched the Mac to Intel's processors and rolled out the iPhone. But a spruced-up Xserve blade server could be a nice complement to the Mac if Apple ever gets serious about tackling the enterprise market.
Still, Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff believes that Apple is unlikely to plunge back into the server market headlong after successfully pulling off the transition from a computer company to a consumer electronics company. Apple appeared to be serious about the server market when it launched the Xserve earlier this decade, but has spent less and less time extolling the product over the last two or three years, he said.
Papermaster's hire could signal Apple's intentions to build out a cloud-computing infrastructure to support things like MobileMe, or future services along those lines. Dense-but-powerful blade servers are being eyed by many companies as they build out the data centers of the future, and if Apple ever wants to be a major player in the future of Internet-delivered services, it is going to need a lot of computing power at its disposal. Papermaster's expertise in system design--putting together the entire package of processor, chipset, and the rest of the guts that form a computer--could serve him well at a company that prides itself on soup-to-nuts design.
As an extremely well-respected figure in the world of chip design, Papermaster might also be stepping in to lead Apple's chip design efforts. Apple's acquisition of P.A. Semi earlier this year showed the company is very serious about chip design. Jobs told The New York Times that P.A. Semi would be used to build chips for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Papermaster's expertise lies with the Power architecture, of which Don Dobberpuhl's P.A. Semi team is also well-acquainted. The primary role for the Power architecture these days is in gaming consoles--all three major gaming consoles use a chip based on the Power architecture--but that does not necessarily mean Apple has that goal in mind, either.
If Apple wants to continue its strategy of designing and building complete systems, hardware, software, and now chips for iPhone and iPod Touch, it is going to need someone who can predict the future of chip design advise Jobs and Apple's executive team on how Apple can best take advantage of those trends. Papermaster, with a unique set of skills in the tech industry, might be just that guy. "They probably need somebody with an experience set that doesn't exist at Apple today," Haff said.

Intel Larrabee: An Introduction

If you haven't heard of Larrabee before reading this then on behalf of all of us, welcome back from whatever planet the aliens abducted you to. Intel's impending entry into the GPU market has been rumoured and talked about since late 2006, but up until now precious little concrete information has actually been revealed. The only solid information available was that Larrabee would comprise multiple x86 (Intel Architecture, IA) compliant cores thus making it capable of executing 'normal' code as well as running both the DirectX and OpenGL graphics-specific APIs.
With Intel's own developer forum, IDF, just around the corner and the more general, entirely graphics-centric, SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) conference starting on the 11th of this month Intel has finally allowed we, the general public, further information relating to Larrabee's architecture. The full paper details are being presented at SIGGRAPH and will appear at this link once available on the 12th of August.
Click to enlarge
Architecturally, Intel is making a massive departure from traditional GPU design with Larrabee. Annoyingly there's a lot of information on slides within the paper provided to us by Intel that we aren't able to publish (although we can at least write about said details) and even more that Intel won't talk about yet. Nonetheless, compared to the next-to-no information we've had up until now getting anything out of Intel is great.
Back in the early days of computer graphics, there was no such thing as a graphics card; everything was rendered in software by the CPU. As far as the average (if pretty loaded) consumer was concerned, that changed in 1996 with the release of the Voodoo 1 from 3dFX. For the fist time you didn't need to buy a new CPU (and usually, as a consequence, a whole new PC) to improve your gaming experience, you just slotted a PCB into in a PCI slot and away you went.
This move to discrete 3D graphics brought with it a divergence in architecture. CPUs carried on as they always had, optimising performance to carry out lots of different tasks pretty fast at the same time. GPUs, conversely, started to become much more fixed function and geared towards throughput performance. However, not all games are coded equally which means that in all but an ideal scenario, parts of the single-function card are sitting around waiting for something to do while other sections are overloaded with work.
This problem was partially solved in 2006, with the release of nVidia's G80 chip, the GeForce 8xxx-series and, a bit later, AMD's R600, 2xxx-series. The stream processor-based design upon which these and their successive GPUs operate means that some sections of that fixed function pipeline can be tailored on-the-fly to allow the GPU to adjust some parts of the rendering pipeline to best effect.

These trends towards massive parallelism and programmable, rather than fixed function processing lead the GPU's architecture on an interesting convergence with that of modern CPUs. Top end Nehalem chips will offer eight cores, each capable of processing two simultaneous threads and from what we hear from Intel, the future will see a tendency towards CPUs boasting many-core architectures, rather like a GPU.

Sun's largest investor ups stake

Sun Microsystems' largest shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, has upped its stake and taken a more aggressive attitude toward its investment, indicating that it will take an active role in maximizing shareholder value through talks with management and third parties, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.
Southeastern, an investment advisory service and self-described value investor in large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap companies, increased its stake to 21.2 percent from its previous investment in September of 17.3 percent.
In noting the increased stake and change in its status as a passive investor to one that wants the flexibility to take a more active role, Southeastern stated in its filing:
"In this situation, Southeastern has talked to the issuer's management, and will have additional conversations with management and/or third parties, regarding opportunities to maximize the value of the company for all shareholders."
"To obtain the flexibility to discuss various alternatives, including any of the actions or transactions enumerated in clauses A through J of Item 4 of Schedule 13D, with the Issuer's management or with third parties, Southeastern is converting its ownership filing on Schedule 13G to a filing on Schedule 13D," Southeastern added.
Converting to a passive investment stake, as indicated in Schedule 13G, to a Schedule 13D allows Southeastern to take an active role in which it can work with other investors. Southeastern obviously is not a happy camper, especially after Sun's stock took a dramatic 17.5 percent plunge on an earnings warning Tuesday to close at US$4.77 a share.
Sun's stock is trading below US$5 a share for its second consecutive day. And in certain cases, institutional investors, such as pension funds and asset managers, are prohibited from owning stock in companies that trade for less than US$5 a share.
"We have talked to [Southeastern] and will consider their input, just like we consider the input from all our investors," said Dana Lengkeek, a Sun spokeswoman. She declined to comment on the content of those discussions with Southeastern, as well as with other institutional investors. She added Sun speaks to its investors on a regular basis.
According to SEC filings, Southeastern initially took a 10 percent investment stake in Sun Microsystems back in late May. That is when the stock was trading around US$13 a share.
Since then, Southeastern has steadily ramped up its investment as Sun's shares have continued to fall. In August, Southeastern noted in an SEC filing it had increased its stake to 16.5 percent and in Sun's proxy statement last month, it was listed as a 17.5 percent stakeholder.
A spokeswoman for Southeastern Asset declined to comment on the company's increased stake and desire to play an active role in maximizing shareholder value at Sun, noting that the company does not comment on companies in which it has holdings.
But in a BusinessWeek story published earlier this month, a Southeastern Asset manager had this to say about Sun Microsystems:

IBM and Intel® Drive Adoption of Open Switch Specification for Blade Servers

Switch Vendors Can Reach a Broader Set of Clients with a Single Product
IBM and Intel Corporation today announced they are extending their collaboration in the blade server market to drive adoption of an open industry specification for blade switches. This will enable switch vendors to maximize return on their research and development by developing products to a single design, reaching more customers with just one product.
Switches are essential components of every blade system, channeling data to and from the server. As part of the agreement announced today, IBM will extend the BladeCenter switch specification for blade servers to the Server Systems Infrastructure (SSI) organization on a royalty-free basis, allowing switch vendors to create one product that works across the BladeCenter and SSI ecosystems and driving more switch products for clients to choose from. The companies also announced plans to work together to establish a third-party Switch Compliance Lab, where the developer community can test and verify their blade server products for BladeCenter and SSI environments.
The announcement today builds upon a history of IBM and Intel collaboration on blade technology -- starting in 2002 with the development of the first BladeCenter servers and continuing in 2006 when IBM, Intel and other industry leaders formed Blade.org, the industry consortium driving open innovation in blade-based solutions that today has over 200 members.
SSI is an industry organization established over 10 years ago to enable server builders to develop compliant and interoperable building blocks for blade, chassis and manageability software technology. The incorporation of the open switch specification into SSI is intended to broaden the market for switch module vendors as they collaborate on SSI-specified blade switch solutions with Intel and IBM. In this segment, Blade Network Technologies, Brocade, NextIO and others have committed their support for the open specification. By extending its switch specification and ecosystem to affiliated members of SSI, IBM is driving greater adoption of BladeCenter-compatible switches.
"The extension of the BladeCenter switch specification and ecosystem to SSI advances open specifications for blade systems," says Alex Yost, vice president of IBM BladeCenter. "Making the switch design in our open BladeCenter specification available to a broader set of vendors demonstrates IBM's commitment to foster openness in the blade server market."
Demand for a common switch specification comes at a time when blade servers are becoming a critical ingredient in IT infrastructure. The availability of the open BladeCenter switch specification to SSI members allows them access to the more than 25 specification-compliant switches on the market today.
"By working with IBM, we have expanded ecosystem support for SSI blade specifications to over 70 vendors," says Kirk Skaugen, General Manager, Server Platforms Group, Intel. "Continued IBM and Intel collaboration will go further to expanding the entire blade server market. This is good for customers who will benefit from increased choice from a breadth of server, networking and storage vendors while enabling each product to maximize return on the R&D invested."
About IBM BladeCenterIBM has the broadest portfolio of blade offerings in the industry, including five blade enclosures, five compatible server blades and five I/O fabrics with a common architecture that allows clients to mix and match offerings. IBM has also taken a unique approach in the industry by opening up the IBM BladeCenter hardware architecture, which has created market and revenue opportunities for hundreds of companies selling peripherals like network and storage cards, switches and software. Since opening the BladeCenter specifications in 2004, 500 companies have downloaded the specifications for free. For more information about IBM BladeCenter, please visit: www.ibm.com/bladecenter.
About IntelIntel (NASDAQ: INTC), the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live.

Intel Capital Announces Three New Investments in China Including its First Chinese Cleantech Investments

US$20 Million Investment in Trony Aims to Accelerate Renewable Energy Generation and Drive China's Sustainable Development

Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, announced today three new investments in China. This includes a new US$20 million investment in Trony Solar Holdings Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese thin-film solar energy and solution provider. Intel Capital also signed an agreement, subject to various closing conditions, to invest in NP Holdings Limited (NPH), a technology company focused on massive electricity storage systems. These are Intel Capital's first two cleantech investments in China and are intended to accelerate local green innovation and new ways to reduce dependency on carbon-based energy generation.
Intel Capital also signed an agreement to invest in Viewhigh, a leading software product and service provider for China's healthcare industry. Viewhigh focuses on healthcare business management, ranging from hospital operation and management to government supervision and financial management of healthcare institutions.
NPH is a cleantech company focused on electricity storage systems for renewable energy and energy efficiency. NPH strives to take the lead in the energy and environmental protection movement in China.
"These investments demonstrate Intel Capital's ongoing commitment to investing around the globe and its strategic focus on cleantech," said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and executive vice president of Intel. "Clean technologies are transforming our world and the landscape of entrepreneurship."
Trony plans to use its funding, including the $20 million from Intel Capital, to enhance its production capacity to 105 megawatts,, to serve a broad base of customers, and strengthen its research and development capabilities. With growing R&D capacities, advanced application of innovative technologies, and low-cost volume manufacturing in Shenzhen, Trony now offers a diverse range of competitive products and solutions for various energy-related applications, such as solar farms in the utility industry and building materials for the construction industry.
"Intel Capital's investment will enable us to expand our leading position in the thin-film solar industry," said Li Yi, Chairman and CEO, Trony Solar Holdings Co., Ltd. "The expertise and network resources of Intel Capital consolidate our confidence to further advance in the energy sector."
"China's renewable energy industry is experiencing rapid development," said Cadol Cheung, managing director of Intel Capital Asia Pacific. "We believe these investments will be a catalyst to drive local cleantech innovation and help China toward the transition to a more sustainable energy system as well as economic growth."
Intel Capital is continuously looking for local start-ups and companies with strong potential for future growth. Over the past 10 years, Intel Capital has invested in more than 80 companies across mainland China and Hong Kong. Nearly 30 Chinese companies have received investments from Intel Capital's first US$200 million Intel Capital China Technology Fund. Intel established a US$500 million Intel Capital China Technology Fund II in April 2008. This fund aims to foster innovation and entrepreneurship while elevating the technology capabilities and global competitiveness of Chinese companies.

IBM, HP jump on Paxville train

IBM and Hewlett-Packard will unveil servers based on dual-core Xeon chips on Monday, according to a source familiar with the companies' plans. The release follows a similar announcement by Dell late last month. The Intel chip involved, code-named Paxville, is a new version of a model originally designed for four-processor servers. IBM and HP both already sell servers based on dual-core Opteron processors from Intel's rival Advanced Micro Devices.
IBM will be putting the dual-core Xeon processors to work starting with its xSeries 346 and xSeries 336 servers. They are expected to ship in mid-October and mid-November respectively, with a price tag starting close to the $2,189 charged for current Opteron-based e326 server models. HP is expected to use the Paxville chips in its ProLiant machines, starting with its DL580 and DL560 models, and to be priced competitively to its DL385 machine, which costs $3,299. The companies are expected to eventually use the new dual-core Xeon chips in their blade server products.

Intel hustles for dual-core Xeon debut

Intel launched its first dual-core server processor Monday, a Xeon that makes up some ground lost to rival AMD but it's due to be superseded by a more powerful model in just a few months.
Dual-core processors have two processing engines on a single slice of silicon, increasing the amount of computing power a single server can handle. It's an approach that has been used in high-end server chips for several years from IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard but now is arriving in mainstream x86 processors such as Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron.
Intel took an unusual step to catch up to AMD, which released its dual-core Opteron in April. Manufacturing was going so well with Intel's "Paxville" chip--a dual-core model designed for higher-end servers with four or more processors--that Intel released a version for dual-processor servers. The urgency of the move is illustrated by the fact that Intel plans to release what was to have been its inaugural dual-core Xeon, a chip code-named "Dempsey," in the first quarter of 2006.
News.context
What's new:Intel launched "Paxville," its first dual-core server processor, designed for higher-end servers with four or more processors.
Bottom line:Intel released the chip earlier than expected in an unusual step to catch up to AMD, which released its dual-core Opteron in April.
More stories on dual-core processors
In addition, the original high-end version of Paxville for multiprocessor servers, called the Xeon 7000, will be available within 60 days and run at clock speeds up to 3GHz, said Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's server platforms group. The chip is arriving "several months" earlier than expected.
Only in 2003 did AMD become a serious contender in the market for processors designed for servers, higher-end machines that handle round-the-clock jobs such as e-commerce Web sites and inventory tracking. The company has jumped ahead of Intel with several key features and gained share against its Silicon Valley competitor, but Intel's greater manufacturing capacity and customer reach have partially offset AMD's gains.
And AMD remains a step ahead, said Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood. "The Intel product is clearly an improvement over the single-core chip in terms of performance, but I think AMD will continue to win most of the benchmarks," he said. Intel will be better able to counter AMD's power efficiency with its "Woodcrest" Xeon, which is due in the second half of 2006, and to counter AMD's performance with "Whitefield," which is due in 2007, Brookwood predicted.
As expected, HP and IBM joined Dell in announcing servers with the processor Monday. Dell announced its dual-core Xeon models in September. Sun, HP and IBM already offer servers using AMD's dual-core Opteron.
Intel's dual-core Xeon, designed for dual-processor servers, runs at 2.8GHz and costs $1,043 in quantities of 1,000. That's a big notch more expensive than the $690 Intel charges for the high-end single-core Xeon, running at 3.6GHz.

Intel plans nine flavors of 'Montecito' Itanium

Intel is expected to begin the introduction of its "Montecito" processors with three models running at 1.6GHz and 1.4GHz, but by the end of the first half of next year, at least six more are scheduled to arrive.
The broad portfolio is shown in an Intel road map seen by CNET News.com. The plan also shows an even broader portfolio of Xeons, a vastly more popular server chip that unlike Itanium can run the same software as other x86 chips such as Pentiums.
The road map also shows that Itanium clock speeds will get a 200MHz boost from the addition of Intel's new "Foxton" technology, which lets chips run faster as long as they don't get too hot.
Montecito, the first major redesign of Itanium in years, is the first in the family to come with two processing engines on one slice of silicon--a design called dual-core that rival chips from Sun Microsystems and IBM have had for years. Despite the significant change, Intel is retaining the Itanium 2 moniker, though augmented with a 9000-series numbering scheme.
Intel declined to comment for this story.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker plans to ship Montecito in limited quantities this year, with full volume beginning in the first quarter of 2006. But the chip family was hit by delays, poor initial performance and software incompatibilities, and Intel has struggled to achieve mainstream acceptance.
"Montecito is a fundamentally new, true dual-core design. It does get significant performance advantages over the previous single-core parts," said Peter Glaskowsky, an analyst at Envisioneering Group and system architect at MemoryLogix. Unfortunately for Intel, though, there are many fewer customers for the chip than the company would like, he added.
In the meantime, Sun and IBM have grown more aggressive, releasing new UltraSparc and Power models that, like Montecito, use an improved manufacturing process with 90-nanometer features. And AMD has had success bringing higher-end features to x86 with its Opteron server chip.
Hewlett-Packard, which initiated the Itanium project and co-developed the initial chips, is the major Itanium server seller, though Unisys, Silicon Graphics, NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu also offer machines with the chip. IBM and Dell have dropped Itanium-based products from their server lines.
But Intel isn't shying away from the Itanium challenge. After the Montecito models in the first half of 2006, the company will release a revamp code-named Montvale in the second half.
The first three Montecitos, the single-core 1.6GHz 9010, dual-core 1.4GHz 9020 and dual-core 1.6GHz 9040, will get a Foxton bump to 1.8GHz, 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz, respectively, the road map said.
The 9020 and 9040 have 18MB of on-board high-speed cache memory, while the 9010 has 6MB, according to the road map.
In addition, Intel is working on a low-voltage dual-core Montecito model, the 9018, with a speed of 1.2GHz, a Foxton boost up to 1.4GHz, 12MB of cache and a 400MHz bus, the road map said. It's also due in the second quarter and consumes a maximum of 62 watts, considerably less than the 130-watt peak of the higher-end Itanium models.
The top-end MontecitoIn the second quarter, a new top-end Itanium is expected: the 1.8GHz 9055, with 24MB of cache and a Foxton boost up to 2GHz, the top speed Intel has so far given for the chip.
In the second quarter, the 9010, 9020 and 9040 also will get a faster front-side bus--the connection between the chip and the rest of the system--that runs at 667MHz compared with 400MHz and 533MHz for the first-quarter Montecito models. Those new versions will be called the 9011, 9021 and 9041, the road map said.
And though Montecito is a dual-core design, Intel will ship new single-core models in the second quarter, the 9010 and 9011 that run at 1.6GHz, have 6MB of cache, and are boosted to 1.8GHz with Foxton. The 9011 differs from the 9010 in its support of the faster front-side bus.
In the midrange, the 9030 and 9031 will run at 1.7GHz, include 8MB of cache and have a Foxton kicker to 1.8GHz. The 9031 supports the higher-speed bus.

Intel pushes back Itanium chips, revamps Xeon

Intel has delayed by months the release of the next three major versions of the Itanium processor, a new blow for the processor family. But the chipmaker also plans a change it said will boost the performance of its more widely used Xeon line.
The next Itanium, a major revision code-named Montecito, recently had been scheduled for debut this year, holding volume production until the first quarter of 2006 so the chipmaker can address quality problems. Now, however, it will debut in mid-2006, spokeswoman Erica Fields said Monday. Its successor, "Montvale," was pushed from late 2006 to 2007, and the next major redesign, "Tukwila," was pushed from 2007 to 2008.
In addition, Montecito won't incorporate the "Foxton" technology that would allowed the chip to run faster when it had cooled. Consequently, its top speed has been reduced from 2GHz to 1.6GHz, Fields said. Another change will be removal of higher-end Monticito models whose front-side bus--the connection to the rest of the system--runs at 667MHz, leaving only the 400MHz and 533MHz models.
"It was required for us to do additional work to meet the production-level quality Intel is known for," Fields said of the delay, though she wouldn't detail what quality issues had emerged.
Faced with initial delays, poor performance and software incompatibility with Xeon, Intel in recent years backed off its ambition to make Itanium the processor of choice for all servers. Instead, the company tailored it for higher-end machines that compete with those using IBM's Power and mainframe chips and Sun Microsystems' Sparc line.
Hewlett-Packard, which initiated the chip project, remains a major backer, but Dell and IBM have dropped Itanium support, and Microsoft's future version of Windows for Itanium will be suited only for high-end jobs.
The Itanium delay "is generally bad news," and competitors will likely pounce all over it, said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff, but it doesn't change the overall competition between the top server makers. "HP still has a competitive high-end processor from Intel, even with this slippage," Haff said.
HP remains "fully committed to continuing to drive positive momentum for the Itanium-based HP Integrity server family," the company said in a statement, citing 113 percent growth in Integrity revenue in the July quarter.
Things look rosier for Xeon, which enjoys widespread market popularity. However, rival Advanced Micro Devices has been gaining share with its Opteron chip.
Dell Extends Mobile Technology Leadership with New Ultra-Mobile, Workstation Notebooks
Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) today introduced two new portable systems -- the ultra-mobile Latitude(TM) D430 notebook and Dell Precision(TM) M4300 mobile workstation - that build on the company's environmental and technology leadership.Reflecting Dell's goal to become the greenest technology company, Dell Latitude D430 notebooks and Dell Precision M4300 mobile workstations comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's newest Energy Star 4.0 standard. Dell has also added the Dell Precision 390, 490 and 690 to its list of compliant systems. With the addition of therecently announced OptiPlex(TM) 740 and 745 desktops and Latitude D630, D531 and D830 notebooks, the company is delivering the most comprehensive set of Energy Star 4.0 compliant product offerings of any major information-technology company."Not only are we innovating on an environmental front, we are bringing mobile technology to corporate and workstation users that allow them to get more done no matter where they work," said Vivek Mohindra, vice president, Dell Product Group. "We are also leading the solid state revolution. Dell was the first major system vendor to deliver on the technology and today we are also making available the most comprehensive set of products with solid state drives."Dell, the first major vendor to offer solid state drives, is extending this technology option to the Latitude D430 notebook and the Dell Precision M4300 mobile workstation. In addition, the company offers the drive on the Latitude D630 and D830. Solid state drives can provide a shock tolerance of up to 1,300 Gs(1) and are predicted to reduce the probability of failure by more than 5 times.(2)Computing Anywhere with the Ultra-Mobile Latitude D430The 12-inch widescreen Latitude D430, starting at three pounds,(3) is designed for customers who want extreme mobility that fits their on-the-go lifestyle, yet still provides performance, productivity and all-day computing. The system is available with the option of Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo(R) processors, extended batteries and the industry's fastest mobile broadband technology supported by the widest variety of carriers. In addition, durable design through the absence of moving parts, an optional solid state drive can improve Latitude D430 performance up to 23 percent(4) and can reduce boot time by up to 34percent.(5)The Latitude D430 is built on four cornerstones of quality, productivity, security and offer:-- HyperConnect(TM) features that enable users to work from virtually anywhere(6) with integrated draft 802.11n wireless connectivity for increased throughput and range enabled by Dell-designed HyperBand antennas that support multi-band wireless performance-- Smart Security solutions engineered to prevent unauthorized access with smart card, password, biometric readers and TPM 1.2-- RoadReady(TM) quality with magnesium alloy construction, solid state drives and full-time Strike Zone(TM) hard drive protection, all backed by about 13,000 hours of rigorous testing to help ensure durable operation-- A customer-driven design that delivers technology choices, including the latest 64-bit hardware and energy efficient productsDell is reducing complexity in customers' IT infrastructures so customers can focus more resources on expanding their business. The Latitude D430 is easy to deploy and maintain with focused services, four generations of component commonality and remote administration capabilities that come with Dell Client Manager.

IBM Sues Apple-Bound Microchip Expert

IBM is suing one of its top technology executives, claiming that his acceptance of a job at rival tech vendor Apple violates a noncompete agreement he signed.
Mark Papermaster's plan to join Apple violates "his contractual obligation to refrain from working for an IBM competitor for one year" after leaving the company, IBM states in papers filed last week in U.S District Court in Manhattan.
Papermaster, a 26-year IBM veteran, is part of the company's "elite" Integration & Values team, according the documents. He is also the top expert in IBM's Power microprocessor architecture and "is privy to a whole host of trade secrets and confidences belonging to IBM," according to the complaint.
IBM said it fears that Papermaster could help Apple develop rival server and chip products, and notes that Apple earlier this year acquired P.A. Semi with an eye to expanding its presence in those markets. IBM also claims that Apple considered replacing the IBM Power chips used in some of its computers with chips made by P.A. Semi.

Intel puts four on the floor

Intel's planning its own version of "Quadrophenia" for this week's Intel Developer Forum, except without The Who or any tough, young mods facing off against angry rockers.
Instead of a rock opera, Intel will shed more light on its plans for quad-core processors, company representatives and analysts said. It has already revealed the code names for the server and desktop versions of those chips: Clovertown and Kentsfield. Those models will be constructed by combining Intel's two newest dual-core processors in those categories in a multichip package.
Attendees are also expected to hear more details about Santa Rosa, an updated version of Intel's Centrino package of chips for notebook PCs, scheduled to arrive around March of next year. And the chipmaker's server division will also likely have a few things to talk about, including the Common System Interface architecture that Intel expects to debut in 2008, and possible plans to let future server processors link directly to third-party co-processors.
Intel holds its developer forums twice a year to educate the hardware developer community on its latest technologies and plans for the future. The chipmaker's CEO, Paul Otellini, is set to deliver the opening keynote address on Tuesday. Other executives, such as labs chief Justin Rattner and server guru Pat Gelsinger, are scheduled to address the crowd of developers, partners and media.
There's a bit of a cloud hanging over the San Francisco event this year, however. Despite all the accolades for Intel's newest generation of Core processors, the Santa Clara, Calif., company has had a tough year. Layoffs, budget cuts and executive shuffling have all taken a toll inside Intel as it adjusts to life with smaller market share. That's why some show veterans are expecting this year's affair to be a bit more subdued than in the past.
After all, Intel already trotted out most of its good stuff this summer, in an attempt to catch up to the performance lead enjoyed by Advanced Micro Devices in the server and desktop markets. It moved up the launch of all three new Core architecture products, such as the Xeon 5100 series server processors, and the Core 2 Duo chips for both desktops and notebooks. It has also revealed an accelerated schedule for presenting new chip architectures, in a bid to avoid getting caught going the wrong way by having more frequent updates to its blueprints.
Also, it seems Intel is less interested these days in providing too detailed a look at its future plans, said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. "I think they are sensitive right now because of the competitive landscape," he said, noting that AMD's position against Intel has never been stronger.
Four in handBut attendees will definitely hear new information about Intel's quad-core chips. Enthusiast sites have been reporting that the processor will bear the "Core 2 Quadro" moniker, although Intel representatives have strongly denied that is the name for the upcoming chip. Whatever brand Intel chooses for Kentsfield, the desktop version, it will probably be associated with something expensive, as the initial buyers of Kentsfield should be early adopters willing to pay big bucks for the highest-performing chip on the market.
Chances are, such buyers will have the opportunity to do so in time for the holiday season, according to sources familiar with Intel's plans. The company had already said it will release Kentsfield and Clovertown during the fourth quarter, but sources say it now expects to make sure those chips are available in PCs offered to holiday shoppers. Intel declined to comment on its plans.
The earlier-than-expected arrival of new models might also push the prices of older dual-core chips down Intel's price stack, making for some compelling deals during the all-important holiday shopping season, said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at Insight 64.
On the notebook front, Intel has felt less pressure from AMD. But it still launched two new mobile processors--the Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo--in 2006. The Core 2 Duo chip plugs into the same motherboards used for Core Duo notebooks, and Intel will bring some new technologies to the fore next year with the Santa Rosa platform. These include 802.11n wireless capabilities and improved graphics performance.
Graphics pictureGraphics technology is something that the entire PC industry is looking at a little differently these days, ever since AMD reached an agreement in July to purchase graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies for $5.4 billion. AMD and ATI have announced vague plans to integrate a graphics processor onto a PC processor sometime around 2008, and many are wondering what Intel has up its sleeve in this area.
Over the past few years, Intel has devoted a lot of attention toward the integrated graphics technology in many of its chipsets. This is basic no-frills graphics technology--serious gamers put discrete graphics chips from the likes of ATI and Nvidia in their systems--but integrated graphics are good enough for most PC users.
In a possible foreshadowing of Intel's strategy, the company's latest chipset, the 965G, goes a little bit further than past integrated graphics chipsets with specialized graphics hardware integrated into the chipset, said Dean McCarron, an analyst at Mercury Research.
Intel's integrated graphics strategy over the past several years has been to produce decent but inexpensive graphics hardware, emulating some of the graphics processing tasks in software running on the main central processing unit, McCarron said. But the 965G has a piece of hardware on the chipset dedicated to a specific graphics task--transform and lighting--that lightens the load on the main CPU. With AMD angling toward incorporating parts of ATI's high-end graphics hardware into future chips, this could become an important differentiating factor in the future

Intel apologises for iPhone rant

Chipmaker Intel has released an apology for comments made by its executives this week on the inadequacies of the iPhone and the ARM processor driving it.
At the company's developer forum in Taipei, Shane Wall, Intel's VP, mobility group and director strategic planning, platform architecture and software, ultra-mobility group had remarked on the iPhone's performance. "Any sort of application that requires any horse power at all and the iPhone struggles," he said.
Pankaj Kedia, director of ecosystems for Intel's ultra-mobility group blamed the device's slowness on the phone's ARM processor. "The shortcomings of the iPhone are not because of Apple. The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM."
Intel senior VP Anand Chandrasekher yesterday issued what he said was a correction on the executives' words, saying that Intel's Atom processor had not yet matched the battery life characteristics of the rival ARM processor for devices the size of a phone.
"While Intel does have plans on the books to get us to be competitive in the ultra low power domain — we are not there as yet," he said.
The olive branch was also extended to Apple. "Secondly, Apple's iPhone offering is an extremely innovative product that enables new and exciting market opportunities."
Chandrasekher said the comments made by Intel executives Shane Wall and Pankaj Kedia this week at the Intel Developer Forum in Taipei had been inappropriate and that Intel representatives should not have commented on specific customer designs.
The comments came just as Apple reported that booming sales of the device made it account for 39 per cent of the company's business.
Apple hasn't been frightened to give Intel the cold shoulder in the past, such as earlier this month when it said the new Apple MacBook and MacBook Air will both come with Nvidia graphics instead of the Intel integrated graphics used in older models.