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Intel Hardware

Intel Discusses Future Plans 154

Posted by Zonk from the they'll-stay-in-the-chip-business dept.
heeeraldo writes "Tom's Hardware (unfortunately known for their one-page-stretched-into-nine articles, and endless ads) attended an Intel presentation about their future processor plans. The unsurprising bit: the endless march of additional cores. The surprising part: they're already focusing on 45nm processes." From the article: "Last week, Intel held a series of presentations at its Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro, Oregon, whose facilities represent the main pillar of product design and manufacturing. These presentations included a short tour to the top-notch 65 nm production facility Fab D1D whose specifics Intel is currently replicating to other locations. The primary purpose of this show obviously was to convince around 80 analysts and journalists of the substantial health of Intel's 65 nm fabrication leadership, which is outputting new processors in high volume for launching new Pentium 4 6x1, Pentium D 900 and Core branded (known as Yonah) processors in early 2006."
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Intel Discusses Future Plans More

Intel Discusses Future Plans

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  • apple (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @03:55AM (#14183246) Homepage
    FTFA.

    they're already focusing on 45nm processes

    substantial health of Intel's 65 nm fabrication leadership, which is outputting new processors in high volume for launching new Pentium 4 6x1, Pentium D 900

    Now I think we all know why Apple did what they did.
    • Who CARES what process tech they are using. At one time, the Northwood at .13 looked like it was going to KICK ASS on paper. It turned out to be an underperformer - to say the least. Let's not talk 'process', let's talk about IPC and how it's going to kick AMD's butt.

    • Re:apple (Score:3, Informative)

      by darkmeridian ( 119044 )
      Intel is also showcasing technology that allows for lower voltage leakages. Lower voltage leakages in their chips mean less power having to be pumped into the core, which means lower heat dissipation requirements. The heat savings are huge on laptop because excess heat requires fans, which need power and create noise. On desktops, Apple can use their water-cooling system, but on laptops, not so much.
    • Now I think we all know why Apple did what they did.
      I don't. Which of the revelations are surprising?

  • Surprising how? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ziviyr ( 95582 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @03:58AM (#14183253) Homepage
    The surprising part: they're already focusing on 45nm processes.

    Thats the only way to dodge their inefficiency problems. Outside of like, designing better chips.

    • Re:Surprising how? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Pentium M is not inefficient.

    • Re:Surprising how? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ciroknight ( 601098 )
      Well I hate to burst your bubble, but the next generation Yonah and the "Core" technology is gearing up to be more effecient than anything AMD has ever produced.

      You see, effeciency isn't a measure of raw speed, it's a measure of power verses the thermal production and power needed to run the chip. In this case, Intel wins flat out. While AMD's chips may be faster, Intel's Pentium M platform has been growing in the background. When Yonah is released, we will not only see speeds slowly being ramped back up
      • So you are comparing existing technology with engineering samples. That works so well in a vacuum, however when both sides get to shift into dynamic design mode, that doesn't always hold true.

        By the way, how much of a difference in speed for how much of a difference in power savings is there between those chips?

      • I remember from an article a few days back: "While the Yonah is slightly behind the Athlon X2 in performance, it outputs less heat under load than the Athlon X2 does when idling."

        That preview from Anandtech failed to mention some key aspects necessary for comparison, such as: was Cool 'n Quiet enabled on the Athlon 64 processor?

        But there was also no conjecture that took into account the comparison between a desktop and laptop chip. The Yonah, like Dothan and Turion will be binned based on a lower full-load
      • Yes everything you say is true but we haven't seen these new chips yet in the real world. After the chain of missteps Intel has made ,Rambus , Pentium 4, Itanium, I could go on but frankly Intel has a long history of failures in the CPU market with one HUGE success the X86 line. While the X86 turned out to be a success the likes of which no cpu has ever seen Intel's other CPUs have largely been okay CPUs or failures. And yes the Itanium is a failure. It was supposed to replace the X86 line every where. I th

  • Quantity better than Quality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by obender ( 546976 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @04:02AM (#14183267)
    If this proves to be more than vapourware Intel could beat up AMD again just by volume. I have been trying to buy a cheap dual core Opteron 165 and no shop seems to stock it. I will not preorder as I know this involves a price premium plus if things go wrong it will take even longer to get it replaced.

    If Intel starts mass producing these then people will just buy what's avalable.

  • The PR War (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yerdaddie ( 313155 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @04:05AM (#14183271) Homepage
    I couldn't help but think that this is just the newest assult as part of a press-release war between Intel and AMD. Recently, it seems AMD has been taunting [theinquirer.net] Intel about the performance of its dual core technology. So it appears Intel's reponse is to say "your manufacturing process couldn't lithograph its way out of a paper bag."

    • Re:The PR War (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Malor ( 3658 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @07:19AM (#14183749) Journal
      Wow, you know Intel is hurting right now if they're using that argument. This is exactly equivalent to,

      AMD: "Your car sucks! Ours is faster, more comfortable, safer, and gets better mileage."
      Intel: "Oh yeah? Well our factories are better! Your factories suck!"

      If Intel has pulled its head out of its butt and put the engineers in charge again, instead of the marketroids, it could easily come back and eat AMD's lunch once again. They execute better than anybody in the tech business. They are a fearsome competitor. They've marketed themselves into a significant bind, but if anyone can dig themselves out of that jam, it's Intel. 80% market share gives you some leeway for mistakes, even big ones.

      However, that said, I don't think 2006 is looking too good for them. If AMD can simplify their lines a little and keep executing as well as they have, they could take a good chunk of marketshare next year. By 2007, I figure Intel is going to be back in the game, and I'm looking forward to whatever they come up with.

      This competition is GREAT for us. When Intel isn't challenged, prices stagnate and chips go nowhere. And with the competition this intense, it will be harder for either company to push involuntary DRM hardware.

      • Re:The PR War (Score:3, Insightful)

        by darkmeridian ( 119044 )
        The analogy you propose is inaccurate. Intel is saying, "Look, AMD factories are going to be unable to make the next generation of cars." Intel is telling the investors (stock analysts) that the Intel future is great because AMD cannot match the 45 or 65 nm process in large quantities with sufficient yield. Chip designs obsolete quickly, but fab facilities are relatively long-term. Whenever Intel decides to stick a dual-core Pentium-M based design onto the desktop, with or without 64 bit extensions, is the
        • Let's not forget that smaller circuits mean more cache on-die.

          Let's not forget that smaller circuits also mean more errors per wafer. The key here is to make sure your processes are still good enough that when you shrink the die size the extra dies per wafer outpaces the errors per wafer. To be honest, Intel can be confident that their processes will work fine, but they will not really know for sure until they actually begin mass producing at 45 nm.

      • Re:The PR War (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )
        AMD: "Your car sucks! Ours is faster, more comfortable, safer, and gets better mileage."
        Intel: "Oh yeah? Well our factories are better! Your factories suck!"

        Don't forget that an important part of better process tech is more dies/wafer, meaning lower marginal cost. Basicly, that tells the investors that margins will stay good, and that they can be cut if the competition forces them to.

        When Intel isn't challenged, prices stagnate and chips go nowhere. And with the competition this intense, it will be harder f
      • I disagree; with this next wave of promotion (and the fact they've been holding off so long on it), it indicates Intel is very confident and is preparing to repair confidences in their company in this upcoming year. To sweeten the deal, they threw in all of the upcoming information about *easily* a year and a half's worth of new core details, many of which have already been taped out and are simply waiting for all of the manufacturing plants to come onboard.

        It also seems that Intel has adopted a very App

  • It is mostly wrong (Score:5, Informative)

    by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 ) <{charlie} {at} {semiaccurate.com}> on Monday December 05, 2005 @04:24AM (#14183328) Homepage
    The article is full of problems. Whitefield was canceled a couple of months ago:
    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27192 [theinquirer.net]
    There is a lot wrong with the 45nm code names, and in general, it is lacking a lot of info.

    If Intel gave him this info, it is blurring the lines for PR purposes, and somewhat flat out wrong. As of Friday, Whitefield was still dead, and the roadmap didn't match up with Intel's internal ones.

    There is a bit of right there, but few if anything that can't be found at the usual places.

                      -Charlie

  • the real question is (Score:5, Funny)

    by radicalnerd ( 930674 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @04:25AM (#14183330)
    how is intel planning on confusing customers with their new naming schemes?

    • Re:the real question is (Score:5, Funny)

      by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @04:57AM (#14183416) Journal
      Confusing? Not this time around! Intel marketing has learned it's lesson. These new processors will all have distinct and different names, including:

      Pentium I
      Pentium Ì
      Pentium Í
      Pentium Ï
      Pentium Î

      The new line features the standard, grave, acute, diaeresis, and circumflex models. Very different from one another!

      Each processor will serve it's own special purpose and will have the exact same socket configuration. Unfortunately the processors are incompatible from a power standpoint and the mismatching of a processor and motherboard will result in the loss of both.
    • http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27957 [theinquirer.net]

      Yup, not a problem. The last two are by far the best.

                -Charlie

  • Intel finally catching up ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tuxpert ( 512567 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @04:32AM (#14183349)
    From TFA - "The introduction of the Merom design will be a turning point in Intel's product policy, because it will be the backbone for all processor families that go into the desktop, the mobile or the enterprise space. In contrast, the desktop and enterprise markets are provided with Pentium 4 and Pentium D NetBurst architecture processors while the mobility CPUs are derived from the more efficient Pentium M design"

    Merom being the sucessor to the forthcoming Yonah. Based on the recent AnandTech benchmarks of Yonah against desktop chips [anandtech.com], it seems like Intel may not have to play 'catch up' for much longer. Of course, we don't know what else AMD has up their sleeve :)
  • the next generation merom [wikipedia.org] will, apparently, operatate at wattages of ~0.5 watts. Maybe now they will be a bit more cool. And, maybe, now I can buy a laptop that wont heat to the point of causing infertility [oxfordjournals.org]. Kool. This better happen soon or there will be no "geeks, the next generation"(TM)!

  • Pentium 5? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ScottCooperDotNet ( 929575 )
    When is Intel going to move to Pentium 5 chips instead of a billion models of Pentium 4s? Sure it may seem redundant (pent = 5) but it was at least easy to keep some of this stuff straight when the chips matched to their socket sizes and years somewhat well. P4s go back at least to 2001, when is Intel going to help the everyone sell new hardware?

    And while we're at it, could AMD explain their CPU lines better (esp. to consumers)?

  • Argh.. naming... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Oestergaard ( 3005 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @05:59AM (#14183571) Homepage
    Who dreamt up the "Core" brand?

    It's like when MS picked "SQL server" for their SQL server product.
    A: What SQL server are you guys running?
    B: Oh, we're using SQL server.
    A: Yes, but *which* SQL server? Oracle? Sybase?
    B: No, SQL server!
    A: Yes but.... doh!

    Now that everyone else have been selling multi-core processors for some time, Intel chose to brand their new processor geenration, of all things, "Core".
    A: What multi-core processors are you guys using?
    B: Oh, we're using multiple Core processors
    A: Yes, but *which* multi-core processors?
    B: We're using multiple Core processors!
    *doh*

    Oh dear oh dear...
  • I'd be a little suspicious of any article that is titled "Top Secret Intel Processor Plans Uncovered" even if it wasn't from a long-time Intel fan-boy site. It's hardly surprising that Intel is moving to more cores with 65 and 45 nm. AMD started doing that two years ago and just opened their newest fab to facilitate quad-core and octa-core future cpus on much larger dies. Right now, AMD has at least a one-year lead over Intel in this technology and there's no sign that Intel is doing anything that will l

    • Re:Suspicious article title... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @07:22AM (#14183754) Homepage
      It's hardly surprising that Intel is moving to more cores with 65 and 45 nm. AMD started doing that two years ago and just opened their newest fab to facilitate quad-core and octa-core future cpus on much larger dies. Right now, AMD has at least a one-year lead over Intel in this technology and there's no sign that Intel is doing anything that will leapfrog AMD.

      If by "this technology" you are referring to process technology, you are wrong. Intel has a lead on AMD in processing technology, they were first on 90nm, first on 65nm, first on 300mm wafers, and I'm quite sure they'll be first on 45nm technology. AMD has a lead on Intel in multi-core technology, but you were talking as if it was the fab that was ahead of Intel. It's not, it is the chips that have a smarter design. If you could have AMD's chips on Intel's processing tech, they'd be superior to anything currently on the market.
      • The significant AMD technology leads over Intel for multi-core products right now are their dual-stress liner technology, their silicon-on-insulator (SOI) manufacturing process, their implementation of hypertransport, and their use of an on-die memory controller. These technologies have allowed AMD to develop multi-core cpus that outperform Intel products while operating at a cooler temperature with lower power consumption. Intel OTOH has been relying on clock speed, and more lately, process shrinks, to a
      • Intel will turn around their architectural decisions too, or else they will loose.

        Why?

        You can't just keep making things smaller/cooler forever. You hit physical limitations.

        As-is, AMD is happy to lag behind Intel interms of fabrication technology, as long as they win everywhere else. Intel will change this, however; Intel is a rich, powerful, well-staffed company, they can turn it around.
        • Intel will change this, however; Intel is a rich, powerful, well-staffed company, they can turn it around.

          Your blind faith in corporate ability is astounding. After all, this is the same Intel that came out with Itanium and the NetBurst architecture (5Ghz or bust!).

          They've shoveled a lot of money down the Pentium 4 / NetBurst hole. How long did it take them to admit that the NetBurst architecture was not living up to expecations and that they were going to go back to the Pentium M designs? (Or an i
      • What you neglect to mention is that Intel's 90 nm process suffers from very high leakage and thus thermal problems, while AMD has managed to decrease overall TDP dramatically on their 90 nm designs compared to 130 nm. 65 nm will probably be different, but as the processes in current production stand, AMD's 90nm kicks Intel's ass.
    • It's hardly surprising that Intel is moving to more cores with 65 and 45 nm. AMD started doing that two years ago.

      The point is that Intel is actually producing 65nm chips in quantity right now. AMD is not: even Fab 36 is still 90nm. Your statement that AMD has "at least a one-year lead" is outright false.

      • Re:Suspicious article title... (Score:5, Informative)

        by dtjohnson ( 102237 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @12:30PM (#14185502)
        AMD has significant leads in both manunfacturing technology and cpu design. The specific AMD technology leads over Intel right now are their dual-stress liner technology, SOI, their use of hypertransport, and their implementation of the on-die memory controller. These are the areas that AMD has a 1-2 year lead in. The newest AMD Fab was built for 65 nm and can later move to 45 nm. AMD leads in other areas have allowed them to place less reliance on clock speed increases and process shrinks to achieve performance goals, in contrast to Intel for which clock speed and process shrink seem to be its primary performance tools. Clock speed topped out for Intel so now they have only process shrinks left. There is a lower limit on process shrinks as well due to physical limits so Intel is probably also scrambling desperately to catch up in the areas where AMD has surpassed them. Unfortunately for Intel, there are likely to be no quick paths to implementing the things that AMD has spent years developing.
        • The specific AMD technology leads over Intel right now are.... ...not what was implied by your previous post.

          The newest AMD Fab was built for 65 nm and can later move to 45 nm.

          That doesn't change the fact that it is 90nm today, and will be until at least late next year.

          I'm not going to bother mentioning out all of the things you're overlooking, because I don't really care one way or another about Intel or AMD, but I will point out that for someone apparently concerned about fanboyism, you sound a lot like
        • I don't really know about SOI or hypertransporting, but I am pretty confident in claiming that Intel never wanted to put in an on-die memory controller -- they preferred giving customers the flexibility to use their processors with all kinds of memory.

          I understand your point, but I don't think you can claim AMD is beating Intel in a race that Intel isn't running in. I don't know if this same point applies to SOI and hypertransport or not.

          You could equally claim that Intel has a several years' edge on A

          • Well, it's a little different though - as a layman, it seems like AMD was dual core as a response to Hyperthreading - something that AFAIK is better than hyperthreading.

            This instance is rather an orthagonal competition. Intel is betting that (so far anyway) flexibility is more important to customers than performance, whereas AMD is betting on the better performance they get from having the memory controller on die being the important thing for customers.
    • It depends on what you think is important. According to Anandtech [anandtech.com], Intel has a one-year lead on shipping 65 nm processor parts because it has working Yonah parts now while AMD is not expected to have a 65 nm part until late next year. The smaller die size allows, according to that same article, for Intel to make a dual-core chip at the same die-size and cost as a regular single-core processor. Same price, higher performance, higher profit margins for Intel. AMD has always bettered Intel in chip design while
  • Still Amd has been light years ahead yet it isn't seen on a tv ad. The number of users that have amd on one form or another keep growing. Can intel keep up the heat, even though challenged by to start a camp fire with one of the new procesors... ohh no wait does that say intell?. 0nly time will tell...

  • My personal ad campaign (Score:3, Funny)

    by LaughingCoder ( 914424 ) on Monday December 05, 2005 @08:58AM (#14184038)
    In the past year and a half I converted all my home machines (12) over to AMD. Then I put a sticker on my front door - "Intel Outside".
  • Whats the difference between Current Plans and Future Plans? Surely if you've made them they are Current Plans, and if you haven't made them yet then they don't exist, and even when you start thinking about making them they become 'Current Plans'....

    Hey, its a fairly quiet thread!
    • Personally, I'd categorize them as:

      Current plans: In the process of being implemented. Resources have been set aside, contracts are in-progress, maybe there's concrete and steel being laid already. Funds are being spent.

      Future plans: Anything that still exists only on paper.

      No idea if those are common definitions.
  • am i the only one who finds highlighted words = ads revolting ?

    There is only one way to stop this horrid thing: boycott toms hardware rev and the advertisers

    • Re:advert in article annoying (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you're using Firefox + AdBlock, those stupid things can be banished by adding *.intellitxt.* to the filter.
  • What ever happened to cyrix? :) I owned one or two of those, back in the day. Maybe they've got a new super-secret mega processor in the works that will jump out and take the CPU market by storm!

    Or, maybe not.

    • Re:Cyrix (Score:2, Informative)

      by CPUGuy ( 676781 )
      VIA bought Cyrix and is basically just doing low-power stuff with them.
      Putting them in micro and nano ATX boards, etc...
  • Perhaps it is secondary to the point of the article itself, but did anyone else find the quality of the writing, particularly the final page, to be atrocious? There were a number of spelling errors that would have been flagged by even the most basic of spell-checkers, and the style of the concluding paragraphs was glib to say the least.

    Today, it is all about squeezing the current manufacturing advantage in order to conquer middle earth and lock down brave AMD into its current 90 nm shire - although it i
  • ...for me, since my company boycotts Intel, since they started building a 45nm fab in apartheid Israel.

  • Is it just me, or is the Big Picture non optimal?

    You know, Intel's wonderful state-of-art 65 nm fab line producing dual core Opteron's would be nice:)

  • There are three ways to implement concurrency in a programming language:
    - Shared-state concurrency
    - Message-passing concurrency
    - Declarative concurrency (synchronization on logic variables)

    A post from this mailing list: Lambda the Ultimate [lambda-the-ultimate.org]

    Peter Van Roy - Concurrency-oriented programming blueArrow
    10/21/2003; 5:06:42 AM (reads: 1765, responses: 20)
    Concurrency-oriented programming is a phrase invented by Joe Armstrong, the main designer of Erlang. Basically, we would like to write applications where the concu
  • Did I just miss it, or were they absolutely no references to the clock speeds of any CPUs in the article?

    The cpu speeds have hit a plateau for the last couple years. (Yes, I know about the P4->PM core changes, but even considering that, clock speeds have been stagnant).

    Will the changes to 65nm and later 45nm enable 4GHz++ clock speeds? Or, is all this multi-core talk implying that Intel will be "building out rather than building up"?

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