Intel to deliver six-core Xeon processor this year

by Agam Shah

March 6, 2008 —

Intel on Wednesday confirmed
that it would ship the six-core Xeon processor in the second half of this year,
putting to rest rumors about the processor's actual ship date.

Speculation about the shipping date of the processor, code-named Dunnington,
surfaced last month after an Intel presentation detailing
the processor was leaked by Sun
Microsystems. The presentation, which showed that the chip would ship in
the second half, was available on Sun's servers, but was later pulled off.

The Dunnington chip will be part of Intel's Xeon MP 7000 series of processors
and will allow a four-processor server to have up to 24 cores, Intel CEO Paul
Otellini said during a speech at Intel's investor conference in Santa Clara,
California, on Wednesday. It will be part of the Caneland server platform, which
also includes the Clarksboro chipset.

Otellini also reaffirmed that Intel was on schedule to release chips based
on the Nehalem microarchitecture, a successor to Intel's Core microarchitecture,
later this year. Otellini in the past said that Nehalem would deliver better
performance-per-watt and better system performance through its QuickPath Interconnect
system architecture. Nehalem chips will also include an integrated memory controller
and improved communication links between system components, Otellini said.

Nehalem processors will include multithreading and up to eight cores per chip,
Otellini said. A multithreaded octo-core system will make for a very powerful
machine and could expand Intel's presence in niche segments like high-performance
computing (HPC), he said. The PC version of the Nehalem chip will mix CPU cores
and graphics cores to deliver improved system performance, Otellini said. Nehalem
chips will be manufactured using the 45-nanometer process.

The company will follow up Nehalem with the Westmere microarchitecture in 2009
and Sandy Bridge in 2010, Otellini said. Otellini indicated that work has begun
on microarchitectures to succeed Sandy Bridge, but that code-names had not been
assigned. By 2011, he said chips will be manufactured using the 22-nm process.

Intel will make a real leap into the HPC segment with the Larrabee platform,
which will have lots of cores, lots of threads and deliver performance "bar
none," Otellini said. The platform will be delivered in the late-2009-to-2010
time frame, Otellini said.

Otellini also reaffirmed that the Menlow platform for ultraportable devices
would ship next quarter. The Menlow platform is a set of components, including
the low-power processor code-named Silverthorne and Poulsbo chipset, that run
ultramobile devices. The Silverthorne chip, manufactured using the 45-nanometer
processor, will be upgraded and moved to the 32-nanometer processor next year.

Intel earlier this week assigned the brand name Atom to its Silverthorne and
Diamondville chips. The Menlow platform for ultramobile computers was renamed
Centrino Atom. The Diamondville is a low-power chip targeted for use in inexpensive
laptops.

While Intel is increasingly focused on mobile devices and notebooks, it isn't
giving up on desktops. The company is working on technology called "Remote
Wake-up," which makes a desktop an Internet-attached storage device. Typing
a URL into a remote Web browser wakes up a desktop from deep sleep mode, allowing
users remote access to files on the desktop. Intel is working on this technology,
company officials said, but did not provide a release date.

IDG News Service