sandy

A peek into the future of Intel processors

Intel is on a seemingly unstoppable march toward manufacturing unimaginably small chip geometries of 15 nanometers and beyond. Generally, the smaller the chip geometries--from 45 nanometers to 32 nanometers, for example--the better the performance and the lower the relative power consumption. And to achieve smaller geometries, the chip giant announced today it would pour as much as $8 billion into new factories (fabs) and facilities.

I talked today with Brian Krzanich, a senior vice president and general manager for manufacturing and supply chain at Intel, about the future of Intel manufacturing and, consequently, the future of its processors.

Note that … Read more

Intel's Sandy Bridge graphics tech: How good is it?

Sandy Bridge is the culmination of a major Intel design effort to achieve a respectable level of graphics performance and make it a standard feature in all Intel mainstream processors going forward. This week at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel engineers were fairly candid in explaining what Sandy Bridge can and can't do.

First, some background. A number of technical sessions at IDF were devoted to discussing Sandy Bridge's graphics technology and the design teams that came together to take this critical feature out of the chipset--a separate companion chip--and put it, for the first time, in the main processor, or CPU.

Intel integrated graphics silicon started appearing in many mainstream laptops about six years ago. And since then has shipped in the lion's share of PCs sold worldwide. While this has made Intel the leading graphics chip supplier, it has also made it the perennial target of criticism from gaming devotees, who claim--rightfully so in many cases--that Intel graphics fall woefully short in handling a number of mainstream games. In turn, this has led to Intel rebuttals and corresponding primers on Intel integrated graphics.

And Nvidia, a leading graphics chip supplier, has always offered its two cents on Intel's graphics technology. "Today's visual computing applications--like photo and video editing, playing games, and browsing the Web--use a GPU for the best experience," Nvidia said in a statement just prior to IDF. Standalone graphics processing units from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices almost invariably offer better performance, particularly on games, but can add cost and, in the case of laptops, can up power consumption requirements.

At IDF, Intel engineers described the markets they can, and cannot, address with Sandy Bridge's graphics. Sandy Bridge technology will be part of Intel Core i series mobile processors to be introduced into laptops early next year, with the first Sandy Bridge laptop announcements expected at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

"We're not trying to target the most high-end discrete (standalone) card. We don't have the bandwidth, we don't have the power budget. We're trying to do the best experience for the mobile platform," said Opher Kahn, senior principal engineer on the Sandy Bridge design team. … Read more

Intel discloses new Sandy Bridge technical details

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel revealed more technical specifics on its upcoming Sandy Bridge chip architecture during several technical sessions on Monday here at the Intel Developer Forum.

Sandy Bridge's claim to fame is graphics. It will integrate Intel's best graphics chip technology to date directly onto the central processing unit. Below are some slides that Intel released on Monday.

Thomas Piazza, an Intel fellow and director of graphics architecture for the Intel Architecture Group, said that Sandy Bridge-based chips in their current implementation will not support DirectX 11, a Microsoft technology for accelerating multimedia and games. Currently, Sandy Bridge supports DirectX 10.1 and OpenCL 1.1--the latter used on Apple's Mac operating systems, according to Piazza. Certain graphics chips from Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit and Nvidia already support DirectX 11.

… Read more

Intel's Perlmutter talks Sandy Bridge, tablets (Q&A)

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel Executive Vice President David "Dadi" Perlmutter sat down for an exclusive interview with CNET Monday at the Intel Developer Forum here to discuss the technologies that will define the world's largest chipmaker over the next 12 months. Permlmutter hit on the company's Sandy Bridge chip, tablets, and competition from the satellite of ARM processor makers.

Q: What are the marquee features that differentiate Sandy Bridge from its predecessors? (Sandy Bridge is Intel's new microarchitecture that will eventually span its laptop, desktop, and server processors and is due to appear in chips and systems … Read more

Intel, AMD vie to rewire PC's brain

Intel and AMD are off to the races again. This time it's about making PCs not just faster, but more versatile.

The two longstanding PC chip rivals seem to agree, roughly, on one thing: the need to meld the two key PC chips, the central and graphics processing units, into one processor. But they both bring different strengths to achieve that end.

Why combine chips? Put simply, it takes less energy to move electrons across a chip than to move those same electrons between two chips, so this saves energy, resulting in better battery life for laptops. A point made by Insight 64 principal analyst Nathan Brookwood in a white paper written for AMD, but which, in some fundamental respects, applies equally to Intel.

And CPUs and GPUs are suited to different kinds of computing. CPUs can handle a broad array of tasks, while GPUs are more specialized but much faster at certain types of operations. Future heterogeneous chips could find photos and videos in your library that contain particular faces or places. Or recognize your face when you log in. In short, putting both capabilities on one piece of silicon creates a brainier chip with more processing brawn.

The question, of course, is which company will deliver the goods and drive cutting-edge PC--particularly laptop--designs in 2011? AMD claims that because it is also a supplier of GPUs, via its ATI graphics chip unit, its products are more forward-looking because of the increased emphasis on graphics that tap into key multimedia technologies like Microsoft's DirectX and Apple's OpenCL.

"Intel is understandably more CPU centric. That's Intel's view," said John Taylor, director of marketing for Fusion at AMD. "We're a provider (via ATI) of graphics chips. We're incorporating world-class GPU intellectual property into a new type of design. We look at the GPU in a consumer notebook as a very efficient compute engine as well as all of the wonderful 2D and 3D graphics capabilities," Taylor said, adding that Intel is just "sprinkling" low-level graphics on its CPUs. … Read more

Intel's 'Sandy Bridge' to use new specialized silicon

Intel's upcoming Sandy Bridge processors will include new circuits for handling demanding multimedia tasks, according to sources, more evidence of processor changes in store as the chip giant gets ready to shift over to a new processor architecture.

Sandy Bridge is Intel's next microarchitecture, or redesign, of its processors--which the chipmaker does every two years. The current design, Nehalem, was introduced in November 2008 and is used in all Core i3, i5, and i7 processors, which now populate the newest PCs worldwide. Sandy Bridge chips are scheduled to go into commercial production in the fourth quarter, and the … Read more

Intel CEO: Strong demand for 'Sandy Bridge' chip

In the Intel earnings conference call Tuesday afternoon, CEO Paul Otellini said the company is getting ready to move quickly to its next-generation chip design, "Sandy Bridge."

Intel reported strong second-quarter earnings Tuesday on the back of corporate demand and high gross margins.

Otellini said in his opening remarks during the earnings conference call that Intel is expediting its factory "ramp" for Sandy Bridge.

"Due to the very strong reception of Sandy Bridge, we have accelerated our 32-nanometer factory ramp and have raised our capex (capital expenditure) guidance to enable us to meet the anticipated … Read more

New Intel processors: More powerful Netbooks, what else?

It's always a bit hard to tell just from gazing at CPU specs what exactly we'll see in coming laptops, but Intel's leaked road map of upcoming laptop processors, which provides information on products through 2011, does provide a few hints and interesting notes.

Intel's various geographic code names and ultra-detailed spec charts can get a little sleep-inducing for the average consumer. To boil it down, here are the points that seem most eye-opening, and that could truly pave the way for some cooler laptops down the road.

Things to be excited about in 2010:

Dual-core … Read more

The next, big thing for Intel: Sandy Bridge

Sandy Bridge is arguably Intel's most important future technology. So, what is it exactly?

Intel has been careful to reveal only snippets about the technology over the last 12 months or so. But enough is out there now to understand how the technology moves Intel forward.

In a nutshell, Sandy Bridge is Intel's next microarchitecture, or redesign, of its processors. A chip revamp is the single biggest undertaking for Intel. And it happens every two years. The current design, Nehalem, was introduced in November of 2008 and it pervades all Core i3, i5, and i7 processors (the latter two finally made it into Apple laptops on Tuesday). Its successor, Sandy Bridge, is scheduled to go into production in the fourth quarter.

Key points While Intel Executive Vice President David Perlmutter said he would "not do a deep dive" on Sandy Bridge in his Intel Developer Forum Beijing keynote this week, he did reveal some key points about the architecture.

More efficient: the central processing unit, or CPU, delivers a "significant improvement in instructions per clock," according to Perlmutter, meaning that it is more efficient at executing tasks. Faster on-chip communication: different parts of the chip will talk to each other faster--what Perlmutter called "improved inter-buses." Shared memory: on-chip memory called cache is shared between the CPU and graphics processing unit, or GPU. GPU now part of CPU: Intel combines the CPU and GPU on the same piece of silicon. According to an unofficial photo of the Sandy Bridge chip from Japanese Web site PC Watch, the GPU takes up roughly 25 percent of the processor's real estate. New instructions: Sandy Bridge will be the first chip to support Intel's Advanced Vector Extension (Intel AVX) instructions. AVX accelerates a host of multimedia tasks, including video and audio processing. More intelligent overclocking: and, finally, Perlmutter mentioned improved Turbo Boost--which speeds up (i.e., "overclocks") or slows down… Read more