Driving energy efficiency, Intel unveils core micro-architecture

In an effort to deliver better performance clubbed with
less energy consumption, global chip manufacturing major Intel has unveiled its
core micro-architecture at the ongoing Intel Developer Forum at San Fransisco. 

“This core micro-architecture is low-power,
high-performance and highly-scalable, which can be used across desktop, mobile
and server platforms. This is our foundation of delivering even greater energy
efficient performance to meet our customer's demands in a better way,”
explained, Justin Rattner, Intel Senior Fellow, Chief Technology Officer, Intel. 

Citing energy as one of the most critical factors towards
delivering better performance Rattner said that management of energy will help
the company deliver more when it comes to areas like battery life and power
density. “With the help of this technology we are going to have less energy
being consumed per instruction. So as a direct effect of this, there would be a
lot of energy efficiency with our systems. Our aim has been to provide all best
capabilities and yet save on the energy. We are able to do this now with the
help of this architecture,” he added.

As part of this core micro-architecture, Intel will be
launching its processors Merom for mobile, Woodcrest for servers and Conroe for
the desktop segments. All these processors are expected to provide better
overall performance and energy-efficiency and would be released by the end of
this year.

Reinforcing Intel to the fore Intel believes that its new
found focus towards chips that use less power and have multiple cores to process
data faster will bring some shine back to a product lineup that is constantly
facing challenge from arch rival, AMD. Acknowledging the fact that Intel is
under “tremendous competitive pressure,” Chief Technology Officer Justin
Rattner said that the company believes that energy is the next frontier.

“We are under tremendous competitive pressure but our
innovative product line-up is much better than what the industry has to offer
not only today but moving forward. And we will continue to have that competitive
advantage attached with us. Intel's new core micro architecture will have
innovative technological advancements like, Intel wide dynamic execution,
intelligent power capability, advanced digital media boost, smart memory access
and advanced smart cache,” he said. He also added that the world would shortly
see Intel's Core micro-architecture implemented in mobile systems, while
significantly moving into desktop systems and server systems.

The successor to the current Core Duo chip will have 20%
more power while using the same amount of energy. While, the new desktop chip
will boost power by 40% while using 40% less energy, and a new server chip will
deliver an 80% gain in performance with a 35% reduction in power use, Justin
added.

Speaking about the involvement of dual core within the
enterprise segment, Pat Gelsinger, Senior VP of Intel's enterprise unit, said
that 85%of Intel's server chips should have two cores by the end of the
year.” We are hopeful that 85% server platforms shipped this year will be dual
core. The market forces are driving this and we firmly believe that this is
where the future lies,” he added. 

Speaking about the manufacturing technology being used for
these products, Justin said that the company is going for 65nm technology. “We
have the 65-nm technology and moving forward we would be moving towards the
45-nm technology by next year. Ideally we would be mobilizing all our fabs
online for this and we will continue to invest towards this end,” he added.

 Intel's
developer forum is an important venue for the technology driven community to
roll out new products and showcase applications. The event is well attended by
Intel's partner community, customers as well as analysts from all around the
world

ZIA ASKARI, San Francisco