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CES 2008 — Las Vegas — Jan 07, `08 — Intel unveiled 16 products today, including the company’s first 45 nanometer (nm) processors for Intel Centrino Processor Technology based laptops.

With the introduction of the new processors, Intel will offer 32 desktop, laptop and server processors based on these innovations. Intel also announced continuing momentum in ultra mobile computing and WiMAX.

Mobility: Intel Announces Santa Rosa Refresh Product Line
Santa Rosa Refresh – Intel launched “Santa Rosa Refresh,” an update to Intel Centrino processor technology that includes the next-generation 45nm high-k (Hi-k) mobile processor (codenamed “Penryn”) and improved graphics capabilities.

• 45nm Hi-k Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processor for Centrino — Taking advantage of the Hafnium-based, Hi-k metal gate reinvented transistors inside, Santa Rosa Refresh-based notebooks deliver improved platform performance and great battery life. Graphics improvement focuses on HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc support with an optional third-party decoder, as well as enhanced content and gaming capabilities.
• Santa Rosa Refresh for Desktop — Intel will also use this new mobile technology foundation with the energy-efficient performance of the 45nm Intel Core 2 Duo processor to enable a variety of smaller, cooler and quieter, stylish desktop designs.

Mobile Internet Devices:
• Intel confirms “Menlow” platform shipments in the first half of 2008: Intel is getting ready to ship its first-generation low-power platform, codenamed “Menlow,” in the first half of the year. The Menlow platform is comprised of the “Silverthorne” processor and the “Poulsbo” chipset, both being designed from the ground up for MIDs and UMPCs. At CES, Intel provided a sneak peek of some of the upcoming “Menlow”-based devices and applications that are being optimized for this platform.
• Intel unveils customers planning to launch Menlow-based platforms at CES: In a sign of growing momentum behind MIDs and UMPCs, Intel is showcasing a range of Menlow-based devices from customers who expect to ship these products later this year. In its technology showcase, Intel has Menlow-based MIDs and UMPCs from Aigo, Asus, BenQ, Clarion, Compal, Digifriends, EB, Gigabyte, Lenovo, LG-E, LiteOn, Quanta, Toshiba, USI, and Willcom.
• Skype announces support for Intel-based MIDs: Skype announced a collaboration with Intel to develop a mobile Skype experience for MIDs based on Intel low power processors and chipsets. Mobile users will be able to make Skype voice and video calls and send instant messages on the move while harnessing the PC-like performance of Intel’s MIDs. This new category of small, truly mobile consumer devices with WiMAX and Wi-Fi capabilities will enable free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls and cheap SkypeOut calls to be made on open wireless networks.

WiMAX: Mobile WiMAX Takes the Stage in 2008
Intel’s integrated Wi-Fi/WiMAX module (codenamed “Echo Peak”) will debut in certain next-generation Intel Centrino processor-based laptops (codenamed “Montevina”) beginning in the middle of the year. The company’s low-power mobile WiMAX silicon specifically designed for mobile Internet and consumer electronic devices (codenamed “Baxter Peal”) will also be available this year.

Consumer Desktop PCs: 45nm Goes Mainstream this Quarter
• “Penryn” family of processors comes to mainstream desktop PCs – Intel announced three quad-core and four dual-core 45nm-based processors for consumer desktop PCs arriving later this month and throughout the first quarter of the year. The new 45nm Intel Core 2 Quad and Intel Core 2 Duo processors have a range of speeds and feature large L2 caches and Intel HD Boost, which delivers increased performance on such multimedia applications as video editing and encoding.
• Intel Core 2 Processor with Viiv technology – Intel will also extend the performance and energy efficiency of the new 45nm processors with Intel HD Boost to the Intel Core 2 Processor with Viiv technology platform. The company will also focus future plans on delivering silicon-driven capabilities that support the areas of better connecting, protecting and managing digital content – as well as delivering the performance required to view, share and enjoy it.

• Later this quarter:
– The Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Processor (3.2 GHz/1600 MHz system bus 45nm Hi-k metal gate processor formerly codenamed “Yorkfield”) and Intel X48 Express Chipset targeted at high-end PC users and enthusiasts. The Intel X48 Express Chipset continues to push the performance envelope with native support for XMP 1600 DDR3 memory.
– “Skulltrail” is a new dual processor-based platform that will provide extreme high-end enthusiasts with a fantastic professional media creation and gaming experience. The platform will feature two quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme processors for 8-core performance and 4 PCI Express x16 Gen 1.1 slots with planned support for up to 4 graphics cards. More at Intel (in pdf).

Taipei, Taiwan — On Dec 17, Micro-Star International (MSI) announced that it has already prepared P7N Diamond and P7N SLI Platinum mainboards to support the 45nm Intel processor at the same time when new nForce chipset launches.

P7N Diamond utilizes nForce780i chipset together with top performance specifications and supports 3-way SLI technology. While, P7N SLI Platinum utilizes nForce750i chipset, making this mainboard cost-effective.

Highly Efficient Circu-Pipe and GreenPower Design
The use of selected high-grade components is the common characteristic of the P7N series mainboards. Although the two mainboards have different market segments, they both come with MSI’s exclusive Circu-Pipe design. Circu-pipe can effectively reduce the high temperature from the chipset and MOSFET.

Selected high-quality solid capacitors and POSCAP!
The all capacitors on these two mainboards are high-quality solid capacitors that are made in Japan. These capacitors with low impedance and high ripple current and other characteristics provide better filtering effect. To further highlight P7N Diamond products, the PWM capacitors on this mainboard are based on POSCAP. POSCAP (Polymerized Organic Semiconductor Capacitor) is a high grade product recently developed by Sanyo.

45nm Processor and 3-way SLI ready!
P7N series mainboards are Intel 45nm processor and 3-way SLI ready. The 45nm Quad Core CPU support brings more benefits to multimedia and multitasking by enhancing the performance and reducing the waiting time for any kind of applications. It provides extremely high definition audio/video stream editing and offers higher performance on 3D gaming and professional graphic rendering.

MSI design quad PCI-E VGA slot on P7N Diamond for more than the new Nvidia 3-way SLI technology, also comes with PCI-E Gen2 to offer wider bandwidth. This will bring higher 3D gaming resolutions with more detail DX10 effects. More at Micro-Star International.

Taipei, Taiwan — Dec 19, `07 — DigiTimes brings us another Intel launch-delay news, just 2 days after Intel’s X48 chipset postponement.

DigiTimes reports on Intel adjusting its product strategy and delaying three 45nm quad-core CPUs, Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550, that were originally scheduled to launch in January next year, citing sources at motherboard makers.

“Intel has already notified its partners that it will push back the launch of the three CPUs to February or March next year, depending on AMD’s schedule for triple-core and the upcoming Phenom CPUs.

Launching the CPUs now will not benefit Intel much in its battle with AMD, while they could cause damage to Intel’s 65nm quad-core CPUs, therefore the company has decided it is in no rush to release new products until AMD is able to present more of a threat.” More at DigiTimes.

Taipei, Taiwan — Dec 06, ‘07 — DigiTimes is reporting on Intel releasing its first desktop dual-core Celeron series, E1000, on January 20, citing sources at motherboard makers.

DigiTimes further writes, “The first dual-core Celeron processor, the E1200, will have core frequency of 1.6GHz, 800MHz FSB and 512KB L2 cache with a price of US$53 in thousand-unit quantities.

On the same day, Intel will also launch three quad-core (Yorkfield) CPUs, the Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 and another four dual-core (Wolfdale) CPUs, the E8190, E8200, E8400 and E8500 for desktops, the motherboard makers added.”

Meanwhile, Intel will also roll out the quad-core QX9770 processor which features a frequency of 3.2GHz, 1600MHz FSB, 12MB cache and TDP of 136W with a price tag of US$1,399 in thousand-unit quantities in January. Before March, the company will also introduce a high-end quad-core QX9775 processor with a frequency of 3.2GHz, 1600MHz FSB, 12MB L2 cache and 150W TDP. Pricing in thousand-unit quantities will be US$1,499, said the DigiTimes sources. More at DigiTimes.

Dec 05, ‘07 — DailyTech is reporting on Intel showing no signs of slowing down when it comes to its mobile processors.

“Intel will up the ante again on January 6, 2008 with its new 45nm Penryn-based Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme dual core processors.

It’s highly plausible that the chips could make their first appearance at CES 2008 (January 7, 2008) with further unveils at MacWorld 2008 in Apple’s oft-rumored tablet, revamped MacBook Pros or refreshed iMac desktops.

Initial Penryn mobile processors will launch exclusively with a 35W thermal envelope. Existing Merom mobile processors (T7000-series) also fit inside the 35W envelope at standard voltage. However, with the Montevina Centrino refresh in the second half of 2008, new Penryn mobile processors will receive a 25W TDP rating instead.” More at DailyTech, Intel Laptop Roadmap (in pdf).

Nov 27, ‘07 — Dell today introduced two new models of its Dell Precision^M  workstations, the world’s top-selling line of professional workstations for the past eight years. Available today with prices starting at approximately $1,600 and $1,850 respectively, the Dell Precision T5400 and the Dell Precision T7400 provide the highest levels of performance and expandability available in a Dell workstation.

Dell will be the first tier-one vendor to ship workstations with the latest Quad-Core and Dual-Core Intel  Xeon  processors 5400 and 5200 series, using Intel’s latest 45-nm manufacturing process.

“These systems have some of the fastest Intel processors, high-end OpenGL graphics and massive scalability and memory capacities. In fact, we’ve designed configurations with an industry-leading 1600MHz front-side bus to help provide screaming performance,” said Antonio Julio, director worldwide marketing, Dell Precision workstations.

Key Features

• A dual-socket design supports up to two next-generation multi-core Intel Xeon processors. Dell offers some of the fastest Intel Xeon processors available, up to 3.2GHz. Multiple processor cores can increase application performance dramatically in multi-threaded and multi-tasking environments.

• Dual, full-performance PCI Express Gen2 x16 graphics slots providing up to double the maximum bandwidth of PCI Express x16. This enables customers to include up to two high-performance OpenGL®  graphics cards and support up to four 30-inch DellTM  UltraSharpTM  flat panel monitors at full resolution.

• The T5400/7400 uses a dual independent front-side bus design – up to 1333MHz on the T5400 and up to 1600MHz on the T7400 – to provide a fast data path between processors, memory and chipset, benefiting memory bandwidth-intensive applications.

• Both models use a fully buffered DIMM architecture with up to 800MHz front-side bus on the T7400, which will also support up to 128GB of system memory when 8GB DIMMs become available.

• Dell-engineered acoustic improvements make these systems up to 33 percent quieter than their predecessors.

• Designed with the environment in mind to meet or exceed the worldwide mutually recognized Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Standard 4.0. Both models also use 80-plus percent efficient power supplies to reduce power consumption.

More at Dell.

Nov 12, ‘07 — Bob Duffy post an awesome YouTube video at Intel’s “The Server Room Blog” on Intel’s engineers and architects, Stephen Fischer, Principal Architect, Penryn Microsprocessor; Mark Bohr, Intel Senior Fellow; Kelin Kuhn, 45nm Device Group Leader; Kaizad Mistry, 45nm Program Manager, explaining how Intel got down to 45nm and what’s next after Penryn.

In his words, “Moore’s law has pushed the phyisical limits of the current materials. Intel has used Hafnium based materials allowing for smaller devices without gate leakage. As Kelin Kuhn says, the technology is getting nearly “incomprehensable”.

With 45nm technology we are working on a scale where 400 transistors can fit on the the size of a human bloodcell. Modern processors are allowing for 100’s of millions of working transitors, and devices in the fab are being produced at 1/10th the wavelength of light … truly amazing.” More at The Server Room Blog.

November 11, 2007 — Intel plans to roll out its newest generation of processors, Monday, flexing its manufacturing muscle with a sophisticated new process that crams up to 40 percent more transistors onto the Penryn chips.

The world’s largest semiconductor company expects to start shipping 16 new microprocessors — which also boast inventive new materials to stanch electricity loss — for use in servers and high-end gaming PCs .

The chip maker will now use Hafnium in combination with a pair of secret metal oxides instead of silicon dioxide to craft the insulation layer of the gate that controls current. The tweaking of the materials counts as the most significant change to transistors in about forty years, according to Intel co-founder Gordon Moore.

Fifteen of the new chips will run server computers, or systems that dish out data on corporate networks and the Internet, while one model is designed for personal computers.

On Monday, Intel will roll out 12 new quad-core versions of its Xeon server chip available in the Penryn family, which will ship as the Xeon 5400 Series products. The chips will be available at speeds between 2GHz and 3.20GHz with a front side bus topping out at 1600MHz and cache sizes of up to 12MB.

In addition, customers will find the new quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX9650 desktop chip. Next month, Intel will ship three new dual-core versions of Xeon under the 5200 Series brand. 

Intel plans to release three more server models in December, followed by desktop-computer and notebook chips in the first quarter of 2008.

While server chips cost about the same as PC processors to make, they can sell for 10 times as much.

The new chip line, which Intel calls Penryn, is made with so-called 45-nanometer process technology. That means the gaps between the tiny wires in the electronic circuits measure just 45 billionths of a meter. That’s less than twice the width of a common-cold virus.

The chips have 820 million transistors, 40 percent more than existing models, yet are 25 percent smaller. Intel’s first chips, introduced in the early 1970s, had just 2,300 transistors

“It will have a big impact on servers, which have the biggest appetite for performance,” said Intel Vice President David Perlmutter. “It’s a huge deal. It’s marrying a great product with a great technology.”

As per Martin Reynolds, an analyst with Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc, Advanced Micro is about two years behind Intel in its manufacturing technology.

Next year, Intel will begin rolling out more 45nm chips - “Nehalem” - that rely on a revamped microarchitecture that includes integrated memory controllers and high-speed interconnect.

The server chips will sell for $177 to $1279 in quantities of 1,000. The gaming chip will cost $999 in quantities of 1,000. Intel said all the processors would be available within 45 days. More at Intel.