Intel lifts veil on Silverthorne processor
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Intel will offer a first look at technical details of its low-power Silverthorne processor during a presentation at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this week, setting the stage for a concerted push into the market for ultraportable devices.&quot;This is the&#160;first detailed technical presentation on Silverthorne,&quot; said Justin Rattner, Intel&#39;s chief technology officer and director of the company&#39;s Corporate Technology Group.Silverthorne&#160;is the first x86 chip designed by Intel specifically for small, portable computers. Until now, the company has taken older processors originally designed for notebooks and adapted them for use in portable devices. For example, Intel&#39;s existing A100 and A110 processors designed for these devices are based on the Celeron M chip.Intel&#39;s ISSCC presentation on Silverthorne was anticipated. The conference program contained a presentation abstract that described an unnamed 45-nanometer, low-power Intel processor designed for mobile Internet devices. That description is the same that Intel used to describe Silverthorne, although the company earlier declined to confirm or deny if the chip was in fact Silverthorne.Unlike other processors in Intel&#39;s current product line, Silverthorne uses an in-order processor design, akin to a factory with a single assembly line capable of processing one operation at a time. The chip is the first in-order processor released by Intel since it began shipping the Pentium Pro in 1995. Other Intel processors use an out-of-order design.Out-of-order chips work like a factory with multiple assembly lines. They can process several operations at the same time and generally offer better performance than in-order processors. Silverthorne will make up some of this difference by using Hyperthreading, a technology that allows the processor to work on two instruction threads at the same time.Using an in-order design for Silverthorne struck the best balance between performance and power efficiency, Intel said. But don&#39;t expect Silverthorne to match the performance available from Intel&#39;s mobile Core 2 processors, even though Silverthorne consumes less power. The performance of the new chips will be roughly equivalent to the Pentium M processors found in the first version of Centrino, released in 2003, Rattner said.Intel declined to comment on what clock speed Silverthorne will run at or how much power it will consume when it hits the market in the coming months. But the ISSCC program abstract said the chip will have 512KB of cache and use a 533MHz front-side bus.Observers had expected Intel to offer dual-core and single-core versions of Silverthorne, but Rattner said Silverthorne will have one core.Over the life of the Silverthorne processor, Intel expects to make a 2GHz chip available and plans to offer a version that consumes 1 watt, Intel said, suggesting these will not be features of the processors set for release in the months ahead.When Silverthorne hits the market, it could face competition from Via Technologies&#39; Isaiah processor, a low-power chip that is set for release at around the same time and is designed for the same portable devices makers that are Silverthorne&#39;s target market. Isaiah processors use an out-of-order design, a faster front-side bus, a twice as much cache, which could give the chips an edge over Silverthorne. But an accurate comparison of the two chips won&#39;t be possible until they are released and can be benchmarked by independent observers.Even if Isaiah outperforms Silverthorne, Via must still compete with Intel for orders and that may prove difficult.Via is tiny by comparison to Intel and cannot offer the same level of support to its customers in terms of marketing muscle. Via will also need to keep Isaiah&#39;s price relatively low to be competitive with Silverthorne, which is the smallest chip produced by Intel over the last 15 years or so.&quot;The 486 was a bit smaller,&quot; Rattner said.The small size of Silverthorne means Intel can produce 2,500 chips on a single 300-millimeter silicon wafer. That keeps unit production costs low and will allow Intel to sell Silverthorne at a relatively low price, as well. It also means Intel can produce Silverthorne without diverting too many manufacturing resources from its flagship Core 2 and Xeon products.&#160;
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Chip maker plans for smaller, faster, less power-hungry processors.
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A chip the size of a fingernail and capable of more than a trillion calculations per second is unveiled by Intel.
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Chip maker Intel Corp. has announced plans to improve its flagship products in ways that could redefine the role of a microprocessor in a computer and help the company stay ahead of its competitors.
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ANALYST NATHAN BROOKWOOD has raised several questions about a technology announcement Intel made last week on Pentium 4 dual core processors and wonders just what technology was under the hood.
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At a meeting of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in Santa Clara later this afternoon, engineers from Intel are slated to demonstrate a working version of a conceptual CPU. As promised during the last Intel Developers' Forum, this concept CPU will incorporate 80 cores using an experimental "network-on-a-chip" architecture.
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New server is designed to run AMD's upcoming Opteron chips.
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Catching up with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp. said Tuesday it will ship a desktop PC microprocessor that can handle significantly larger chunks of data than most of today's chips.
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(InfoWorld) - Following theÂ launch of Intel's quad-core Xeon 7300 processorÂ on Wednesday, the company's efforts are now focused on preparations for the rollout of its first Penryn chips later this year. And there are signs the company is planning an early 2008 release of its Silverthorne chip for ultramobile PCs and handheld devices. Intel confirmed plans to release a server version of Penryn before the end of this year, but the company is releasing little information about its plans for mobile and desktop versions of the chip. Penryn will offer better performance than Intel's current processors, and the company is counting on them to hold off any gains rival Advanced Micro DevicesÂ makes with theÂ release of its quad-core Barcelona chipsÂ next week. "So far what we've said is that we intend to ship a broad family of 45-nanometer processors by the end of the year," said Nick Jacobs, an Intel spokesman in Singapore, referring to the technology used to produce theÂ Penryn chips. Penryn is the code name given to the 45-nanometer "shrink" of Intel's current chip designs, which are now produced using a 65-nanometer process. These numbers refer to the average size of the features that can be created on a silicon chip, and smaller is considered better for several reasons, including cost. Making the size of features smaller allows chip makers to reduce the chip's overall size, which reduces unit manufacturing costs since more chips can be made on a single silicon wafer. Chips made using a more advanced manufacturing process can also consume less power and run faster than those made using an older process. In the case of Penryn, Intel will take advantage of the ability to shrink the features of a chip to cram more memory cells into its processors, increasing the on-chip cache size and further boosting performance. The first Penryn processors are widely expected to come in November, but Intel has yet to announce exactly when the launch will happen. In addition to the release of Penryn chips for servers later this year, Intel is expected to release the Yorkfield and Wolfdale desktop variants of Penryn in early 2008, with some speculating that high-end versions of these desktop chips could arrive before the end of this year. Intel is holding off on the release of mobile Penryn chips until early next year, when the company plans to update its Centrino platform for notebooks. Dunnington, a chip designed for servers with four or more processors, will round out Intel's Penryn lineup. Set for release in late 2008, Dunnington will replace the Xeon 7300 chips that Intel announced Wednesday. Intel is also readying Silverthorne for launch next year. Produced using a 45-nanometer process, the dual-core Silverthorne chip is very small, allowing 2,500 chips to be produced on a single wafer to help keep costs low. The chip is designed for low power consumption and comes bundled with a single-chip chipset called Poulsbo. Intel originally planned to release Silverthorne during the second half of next year. But the company moved the chip's release date to the "first half of 2008." That timeframe could mean anything from January until the end of June, but one Intel source said the chip is likely to come sooner rather than later within that timeframe. Asked about an early 2008 release date for Silverthorne, Jacobs would only confirm the chip's planned release is on track for the first half of the year. Â
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com. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Tuesday introduced its fastest desktop processor, heating up competition with rival chip maker Intel Corp.
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Blog: Next week will see the arrival of new Intel chips for servers with four or more processors, as the chipmaker finally moves past the old Netburst architecture.
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(InfoWorld) - Discussions are under way to put an Intel microprocessor inside a version of theÂ One Laptop Per ChildÂ (OLPC) project's "$100 laptop" for children in developing countries, according to representatives from both parties. "Intel, like a lot of other people, is more than welcome to try to design great silicon for this project and this mission, and we've been working with them to help them do exactly that," said Walter Bender, OLPC's president, in a telephone interview. Despite its nickname, the OLPC's lime-green XO laptop actually costs $175. The first version of the machine runs on Advanced Micro Devices' 433MHz Geode LX-700, an x86-architecture chip that is slow by the standard of mainstream processors but consumes little power and costs less. OLPC is close to starting productionÂ of the XO. The group has already gone through four generations of test systems to refine the laptop's design. A production run of 300 machines was completed in August, a final preparatory step before the XO goes into mass production later this month or in early October. While OLPC has yet to decide whether or not to use Intel processors, Intel confirmed its engineers are developing a motherboard based on one of its chips for an OLPC laptop. That process required the engineers to start from scratch, since the current XO design isn't based on Intel's chips. "It requires a new design, a new product," said Leighton Phillips, the manager of Intel's World Ahead Program in Asia. The design, which Intel plans to submit for OLPC's consideration, will be based on either existing mobile chips, such as modified versions of the Celeron M called A100 and A110, or Silverthorne, an upcoming processor designed for small, mobile computers. The dual-coreÂ Silverthorne processorÂ will be made using a 45-nanometer production process and will be available early next year in different versions. Silverthorne's main advantages are lower power consumption and size. The chips are so small that Intel can fit 2,500 of them on a single 300-millimeter silicon wafer, helping to keep unit production costs low enough for them to be used in handheld devices and low-cost computers. Whether Silverthorne is cheap enough to be used in laptops like the XO remains to be seen. "We're looking at ways to get there," Phillips said. If an Intel chip ends up inside an OLPC laptop, the laptop may be different from the existing XO design. That laptop was designed for use in harsh, rural environments with lots of dust and high humidity, but OLPC wants to develop laptops for use in urban areas where better infrastructure is available. "I can imagine there will be a family of laptops in terms of processor power and maybe there will be a larger form factor for older kids," Bender said. The discussions over an Intel-based laptop are part of wider talks on how Intel and OLPC can cooperate on technology and product development. Those talks started in July after Intel and OLPC signed an agreement that, among other things, gave Intel a seat on the group's board and prevents the two sides from disparaging each others' products. Besides putting an Intel processor inside a future OLPC laptop, the talks could see some of the technology developed by OLPC find its way into Intel's hands. For example, the chip maker is interested in the low-power screen technology developed by OLPC. Offering an OLPC laptop with an Intel processor doesn't mean the group will stop using AMD's chips, Bender said. "The Geode's been very easy to work with and hasn't been a limiting factor whatsoever," he said. As part of OLPC's desire to offer systems based on different processors, the group is looking to work with other vendors, in addition to Intel. One such company is Marvell Technology Group, which could see its Xscale processors, which the company acquired from Intel in 2006, also end up in future OLPC laptops, Bender said. "We want to have lots of choices, lots of people doing this, because there are lots of kids and lots of need," he said.
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Dem bones, dem bones Intel has formally launched 'Skulltrail', its two-CPU gaming motherboard that's ready for both AMD's CrossFire and Nvidia's SLI multi-GPU technologies.â¦
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New high-end dual-core Opterons will power servers.
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Intel Corp  on Thursday  introduced high-end processors for computer servers to compete  with an upcoming new product from Advanced Micro Devices Inc  .
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Superfast servers with Intel's new quad-core Xeon 5300 processor coming in January.
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Intel on Monday updated its Itanium 2 processors, adding a top-end model to a high-end family designed to displace chips from Sun Microsystems and IBM.