Intel: Quad-Core Is Just the Beginning

SAN FRANCISCO—Quad-core processors are only the beginning of what a revitalized Intel has to offer, the company's top executives said . The chip maker will deliver in November its first quad-core processors—chips that incorporate four processors each—for both desktops and servers, said CEO Paul Otellini here, in an opening keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum. The quad-core chips themselves will offer up to 70 percent greater performance in desktops and 50 percent in servers. However, Intel will continue to push for great er performance, using a combination of more advanced multicore chips, improvements in processor microarchitecture—updating the circuitry that underlies its chips—and more advanced manufacturing technologies. The company believes that combination will allow it to deliver a 300 percent increase in performance per watt—the amount of work a chip can perform for a given amount of energy it consumes—by the end of the decade, Otellini said. "The initial quad-core products will be targeted for the enthusiast or the gamer segment of the marketplace. This becomes the first quad-core chip in the industry…that is designed for a desktop processor," Otellini said. However, "What we will commit to you for these three [Intel processor microarchitecture] generations is a 300 percent increase between now and the end of the decade," Otellini said.The initial quad-core products will be targeted for the enthusiast or the gamer segment of the marketplace. This becomes the first quad-core chip in the industry…that is designed for a desktop processor," Otellini said. However, "What we will commit to you for these three [Intel processor microarchitecture] generations is a 300 percent increase between now and the end of the decade," Otellini said. Underscoring the point, he pointed to a recently minted prototype chip, part of Intel's Tera-Scale computing research, that incorporates 80 relatively simple processor cores and is capable of delivering performance of 1 teraflop or 1 trillion calculations per second. The chip's 80 cores are simpler than those that will be found in its quad-core processors. However, each chip can deliver 10 gigaflops per watt in performance while running at 3.1GHz. "We think that the capability embodied by this prototype chip will be enabled in a five-year window," Otellini said. "This kind of performance gives us the capability to imagine things like real-time video search… or speech translation from one language to another." While 80-core chips are theoretically possible, the things that will make it happen will be chip manufacturing and transistor designs, he said. Intel's 65-nanometer processor shipments, for one, passed those of its 90-nanometer chips for the first time this September. Transistors inside the 65-nanometer chips offer 30 percent better performance and up to five times reduction in leakage or power wasted when a transistor is switched off.