Intel will look to a multicore future during the
autumn Intel Developer Forum (IDF) as it tries to leave behind a
tumultuous year plagued by product delays and road map
revisions.
The company is expected to provide more information about its
plans to introduce multicore processors across its product lines by
the end of 2005. The multicore concept involves placing two
separate processing engines on the same silicon chip.
Several other chip manufacturers have already introduced
dual-core chips or revealed plans to build these chips. Thermal
problems have forced the chip industry to investigate new methods
of improving performance that do not involve faster clock
speeds.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) demonstrated a dual-core Opteron
server processor that is scheduled to be available in mid-2005.
Intel cancelled two future processor cores in May without
providing any details about what would replace Tejas and Jayhawk,
the codenames for the planned successors to the Pentium 4 and Xeon
DP processors.
The company did not comment on what prompted the cancellations,
saying only that it had realised it could bring multicore
processors to market faster than anticipated.
Analysts believed that Intel's NetBurst architecture for the
Pentium 4 and Xeon relied too heavily on raw clock speed to improve
performance amid the heat dissipation problems that have
accompanied the arrival of the 90-nanometer process generation.
The newest Pentium 4 chip based on the Prescott core consumes as
much as 115 watts under maximum operating conditions in order to
drive the clock speed of the Pentium 4 toward the 4GHz mark.
This is simply too much power to run through a chip that is more
susceptible to leakage problems because of the ever-smaller
structures created with new process technologies, analysts
felt.
A dual-core or multicore processor allows chip manufacturers to
run those individual cores at slower speeds while still improving
performance.
Intel laid the groundwork for its multicore processors with
hyperthreading, a software technology that makes a single-core
processor appear to be two processors to a PC or server's operating
system.
It is still unclear whether Intel will disclose any
architectural details of the forthcoming chips, or even their code
names. Frank Spindler, vice-president of Intel's Corporate
Technology Group, declined to comment on the specifics behind
Intel's multicore plans, but promised that more information would
be revealed next week.
Intel does plan to demonstrate a dual-core processor during one
of the keynote addresses, Spindler said. However, he would not say
what type of system the company planned to show attendees.
How much Intel actually says about its dual-core technology is
questionable, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst with Insight
64. With over a year until the products are expected, Intel might
choose to reveal a few tidbits of information at this conference
and save the meatier disclosures for next year's spring IDF in
February, he said.
Sources have already indicated that the first dual-core Pentium
4 and Xeon chips will keep the NetBurst architecture for the first
iteration of the chips. After that, Intel is eventually expected to
move to a more power-friendly architecture based on Banias, the
architecture behind the Pentium M notebook chip.
On the enterprise server side, Intel has already disclosed its
plans for a dual-core Itanium 2 processor code-named Montecito and
a dual-core Xeon MP chip called Tulsa, both of which are scheduled
to arrive in 2005.
The other major topic on attendees' minds is the
uncharacteristic string of product delays and manufacturing
glitches that have affected Intel this year. Flaws cropped up in
both chipset technologies the company introduced this year, and it
said it would delay its first liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS )
chip for digital televisions as well as the 4GHz version of the
Pentium 4.
Many of the conference attendees plan products based on Intel's
launch schedules, and there is a sense that Intel is about to
become a lot more conservative when setting expectations for the
arrival of new technologies, said Richard Doherty, research
director at The Envisioneering Group.
These hardware and software developers need to make their own
plans based on Intel's delivery schedule, and delays at Intel can
have a ripple effect through the industry, he said.
Intel president and chief operating officer Paul Otellini will
open the show on Tuesday with his keynote address.
Tom Krazit writes for IDG News Service