Speeds and Feeds

I have a few questions to ask at this week's Intel Developer Forum....

Why is Intel using a more expensive chip for the new Core i5 and cheaper Core i7 processors? Why does this new chip--code-named Lynnfield--appear to have features Intel isn't using? What's the connection between Lynnfield and a future Intel chip code-named Jasper Forest?

These questions arose as I've been getting ready for IDF by reviewing recent press releases and news stories about Intel's current and forthcoming products, and chatting with fellow analysts about what we're looking forward to seeing there.

The recent announcements of the Core i5 and new Core i7 processors seemed pretty straightforward. Consider Brooke Crothers' piece on CNET: "Out with the old: Intel makes Core 'i' chips cheap." As Crothers explains, the facts are simple: the new Core i7 800-series slots in under the existing 900-series and replaces some older parts. The Core i5 is a new line, clearly positioned below the Core i7. Features, performance, and prices are all lower. That's as it should be.

But in looking at the coverage on some enthusiast sites, a fact jumped out at me. The Lynnfield chip is 12.5 percent larger than the Bloomfield chip used in the higher-priced Core i7 900-series processors (296 square mm vs. 263 square mm), in spite of the fact that Lynnfield only has two memory interfaces and no QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) link.

The big difference between the chips is the addition of 16 lanes of PCI Express on Lynnfield, but that's only about 80 pins plus the control logic. The changes should have roughly canceled each other out. Maybe one chip would be a little bigger than the other, but not by this much.

I miss the old SGI. Silicon Graphics was widely regarded as the greatest computer company in Silicon Valley back in the 1990s. Sometimes forgotten--but not gone--SGI was one of our greatest success stories and one of our greatest tragedies.

(Credit: Boxx Technologies)

Apple may have had more revenue by virtue of shipping millions of small systems, but SGI's hardware spanned the range from video-game consoles (the Nintendo 64) to workstations to supercomputers. SGI's Unix-based operating system, IRIX, was one of the most sophisticated in the industry.

I used to lust over SGI machines. I'd obsess over lists of used SGI gear, looking for a great deal that would let me have my own IRIX box at home. In 2004, I finally bought an Octane with MXI graphics... but that was years after these machines were effectively obsolete, and I paid less than 0.5% (1/200th!) of the original retail price of the machine.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, SGI was not well managed, losing huge amounts of money because its leaders would not... Read more

With Intel's focus on the new Atom-brand processors being described at the Intel Developer Forum this week, "Atom-powered" is the obvious description of the mobile Internet devices (MIDs) these chips will go into... and it seems like half the IDF stories on the Internet this week are using that phrase.

Intel's Atom processor (on the right) and its companion System Controller Hub code-named Poulsbo.

(Credit: Intel Corp.)

Intel, however, seems to want even more hyperbole-- it expects people to believe that Atom will recharge the whole company. CEO Paul Otellini reportedly said "This is as important to Intel as the launch of the Pentium in the mid-1990s"-- but that's ridiculous.

The original Pentium processor and its descendants were responsible for nearly all of Intel's revenue. Atom will be merely a blip on Intel's financial reports.

The problem with Atom, especially these early models, is that the niche they occupy is a no-man's land between truly mobile devices like cellphones and MP3 players, and truly powerful devices such as laptop computers.

Atom consumes ten times as much power as cellphone processors and one-tenth the power of laptop processors. This power consumption makes for a device that has to be larger than a cellphone, and has to be smaller than a laptop because it can't provide comparable functionality. And there simply aren't enough applications that fit naturally into devices in that size range.

Look, I have as much experience with MIDs as anyone. I used an Apple Newton for seven years (as I've written about here several times). The Newton had roughly the same form factor and somewhat lower power consumption than today's MIDs. For a while I had a Metricom Ricochet wireless modem that gave me wireless Internet access.

But the simple fact is that the Newton wasn't useful enough to make me carry it around all the time. I loved mine because I had one critical application for which it was perfect. It was my electronic reporter's notebook, and no small-screen device could ever substitute for it. But most people don't need one of those.

And most people don't need a 5" to 7" display for basic Web browsing... at least, not enough to actually carry one around. And if you can carry something too large for a pocket, you can carry a small notebook PC that can handle a traditional notebook CPU.

Even after the Atom family evolves to the point that it can fit into cellphones-- which is the only way it's going to achieve significant sales volumes-- profits from these chips will never be very high. Intel's never going to achieve a monopoly in cellphone processors, and the competition from ARM-based cellphone chips will keep the value of a CPU core under a few bucks.

What Intel doesn't want people to think about very much right now is that in a cellphone, the CPU core is about the least-valuable part of the system. Even in a MID with an Atom processor, the CPU is just a tiny part of the whole package. Look at that picture up there-- the Atom processor is small compared with its companion system controller. In a cellphone, there's even more circuitry required for the radios.

And that's why Intel's never going to be an Atom-powered company, and I'm sure Otellini knows that in spite of everything he's been saying. But when your stock price has been trending downward for seven years in spite of the fact that you're running the world's largest semiconductor company with a stranglehold on the world's largest semiconductor market, I suppose you have to try to drum up as much excitement as possible for every new product that comes along.

I learned today that Intel has a Mobility Group and an Ultra Mobility Group. There's a sensible explanation for the difference: notebook PCs are defined as "mobile"; smaller systems are considered "ultra-mobile."

Intel further divides these ultra-mobile machines into two smaller classes: ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Traditionally, the former have 7" screens; the latter category goes all the way down to the tiny screens of smartphones.

Intel's Anand Chandrasekher, senior VP and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, took the stage for the second keynote of the day to talk about "Unleashing the Internet Experience."

His primary contention is that ... Read more

I'm not going to try liveblogging the keynotes today as I did yesterday. There's just never enough content in IDF keynotes to justify the effort.

The first keynote for Day 2 here at IDF was from Dadi Perlmutter, senior VP and general manager of Intel's Mobility Group. His theme was "Breaking the Barriers of Mobility."

He presented the results of a survey that showed the top needs of mobile computer users:... Read more

In a technical session following Pat Gelsinger's keynote, Intel Fellows Stephen Pawlowski and Ofri Wechsler described Penryn, the newest dual-core processor from Intel. Penryn is shipping to OEMs now, with a formal launch scheduled for November 12. The full details of Penryn are available elsewhere, so I'll just focus on some interesting points from the presentation.

Penryn has a "deep power-down" state called CC6 (I don't know what the acronym means). The state saves the core's architectural state into a special on-die memory. According to the presentation, the chip's lowest power consumption can only be achieved when both cores on the chip are in the CC6 state.

Penryn will also support "dynamic acceleration," in which one core of the chip can run faster if the other ... Read more

Pat Gelsinger worked on the Intel 286 and 386 processors and was the chief architect of the 486. Today he's a senior VP of Intel and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.

But today his IDF keynote started out with a seemingly broader theme, covering Intel's "tick tock" development plan, platform technology, and other issues.

He opened by drawing an analogy between the aerospace industry and the microprocessor industry. If airplane development since the 747 had followed Moore's Law, one passenger jet would carry ... Read more

Gordon Moore is a man of extraordinary significance in the semiconductor industry. He co-founded Intel, identified the trend now known as Moore's Law, and has made innumerable personal contributions to this field.

When Moore came up on stage for an interview here at IDF, he received a standing ovation. This was a 10th anniversary appearance; Moore keynoted the very first IDF in 1997.

He was interviewed by ... Read more

I'm in a press briefing here at IDF covering Intel's 45nm and 32nm manufacturing processes.

Intel's tick-tock product schedule keeps moving along. The latest tick is Penryn; next year comes the tock of Nehalem. Both these chips are from Intel's 45nm process.

Stressing its environmental awareness, Intel stresses that these 45nm chips are ... Read more