Intel chips to go their own way

NEWS

Chips in desktops and notebooks will start to go their separate ways in 2003 with the introduction of two new processor families that Intel will tout this week at its Developer Forum. During the four-day conference, the company will provide further details on Prescott, a successor to the Pentium 4, coming later this year, as well as the Pentium-M, a new type of notebook chip debuting on 12 March. Additionally, the company will shed light on upcoming Itanium and Xeon chips for servers, various wireless projects, and the "corporate stable platform," a new technique that will allow corporate buyers to buy new PCs with the latest processors without having to go through the expense and hassle of altering the uniform software image that gets burned onto every company PC, said Pat Gelsinger, Intel's chief technology officer. "The strategy in effect is to stabilise the software but advance the hardware underneath," he said. Also this week, rival Advanced Micro Devices will hold briefings on its Opteron family of chips, while Nvidia, Rambus and others will unveil product plans at the convention or in nearby hotel suites. Prescott and the Pentium-M -- formerly known as Banias -- will mark an evolutionary breaking point. Right now, Intel desktop and notebook chips come with slightly different capabilities, but derive from the same basic design. By contrast, the Pentium-M will feature a distinct design geared toward reducing power consumption and will be optimised to run in wireless computers. Intel, in fact, will begin to tout how the chip and companion wireless components have been certified to work with networking gear from Cisco Systems, according to sources. By the end of 2003, the Pentium-M will become the predominant notebook chip from Intel, according to Don MacDonald, director of mobile platforms at Intel. Desktop chip Prescott, meanwhile, will sport LaGrande, a security technology that prevents outsiders from sniffing a hard drive, and hyper-threading, an inheritance from the Pentium 4 that lets a single chip behave to some degree like two. Pentium-M, for now, will have neither feature. Some technologies developed for one family will migrate to others, but divergence will be increasingly apparent, Intel executives have said. The Pentium-M will debut at speeds ranging from 900MHz to 1.6GHz, slower than Prescott, which will likely hit 3.5GHz or higher, according to sources. Other expected highlights of the conference include the following: * Chipsets: Intel will discuss Springdale chipsets coming in March. These chipsets will raise the bus speed of the Pentium 4 from 400MHz to 800MHz, boosting overall performance, as well as allow PC makers to cheaply adopt Serial ATA, a high-speed method for connecting hard drives. Springdale, and an accompanying 3.2GHz Pentium 4, will also pave acceptance for hyper-threading in the corporate world. IBM and Dell now ship Pentium 4s with hyper-threading off, but will switch with Springdale, Intel representatives have said. * Servers: More details will emerge on Madison, a 1.5GHz version of Itanium coming this summer; Deerfield, an energy-efficient Itanium processor for blade servers; and Montecito, a version of Itanium coming in 2005 that will have two processing cores, 18MB of level three cache, and a billion transistors. * Manufacturing: Chips using the 90-nanometre process will start to emerge in the second half of the year. These chips will contain smaller transistors and run at higher clock speeds than chips made on the 130-nanometre process. Additionally, they will contain "strained silicon," a layer of silicon germanium for extra performance. Prescott and Dothan, a 90-nanometre version of Banias, will be two of the first chips made on the 90-nanometre process. Researchers will also likely discuss how they have successfully completed masks -- templates for laying down circuits -- for 65-nanometre manufacturing, which will begin in 2005. Making a mask, which costs millions and involves extensive research and testing, is a crucial step. * Wireless and networking: There will be updates on mesh networks, which allow users to hop across different networks wirelessly, and ultrawideband technology. Intel will also likely release chips for the telecommunications and networking equipment market. * Cellular: Manitoba, Intel's first microprocessor targeted at mobile phones, will be on display. The company, meanwhile, will discuss plans on future Xscale processors and efficient ways for packing more flash memory into portable devices cheaply. * New technologies: On the final day of the conference, Gelsinger will outline different experiments Intel is conducting in location-based computing, or software that "knows" where an individual is by data culled from his or her past behavior, as well as in the life sciences area. Like STMicroelectronics, Intel has designed a silicon chip that can be used to test DNA samples from bodily fluids, the same sort of thing that now requires lab equipment. Intel is still tinkering with the potentially lucrative technology behind many of these futuristic projects as well as how to approach them as a business. The company may eventually make some of these devices or merely license the technology, Gelsinger said. "Some of the manufacturability and packaging issues of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems), or machines made on silicon, (another Intel research project), is not well solved yet," he said.

See Chips Central for the latest headlines on processors and semiconductors. To find out more about the computers and hardware that these chips are being used in, see ZDNet UK's Hardware News Section. Let the Chips Central editor know what you think by email. And sign up for the weekly Chips Central newsletter.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

ZDNet UK Live

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

3 hours ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

5 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

5 hours ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

7 hours ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

7 hours ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

8 hours ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

9 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

9 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material

For Gnome 2 die-hards, it is possible to add icons to the bottom panel (or top top panel, if you prefer) which provide the exact Gnome 2...

9 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Your comments would seem pretty naive and immature. Your 'solution' appears to be, "gee, let's all just give in to the hackers and give them...

10 hours ago by ramwellian on Cloud computing security: no more oxymoron?

"Interesting thought ... If you installed Win7 as a dual boot on a machine that previously only had Linux, and it wrecked your Linux installation,...

10 hours ago by BugStalker on Windows 7 Declares War on GRUB

This is an excellent summary of Ubuntu and Mint and the interface differences between them. Most such articles take a very partisan position for...

10 hours ago by whs001 on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

@ewallace. Not so clear. Anyone can obtain the text, for example from here http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2379. I support ACTA so long as it and...

10 hours ago by Moley on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

I think WinRT is fantastic. I just wish it was an option for people that didn't want to go through Microsoft's App Store with its attendant...

13 hours ago by 45283 on Why Windows 8 needs architectural hygiene for WOA

Nine people? £30m? Who's back pocket is that lot going in? And IF they say it is for new buildings, what about all the ones the government has...

15 hours ago by Burn-IT on Police set to launch three £30m e-crime hubs

Just to be clear, nobody knows what is in the text of ACTA, here is a photograph of the text of ACTA http://twitpic.com/8h9iju as submitted to the...

15 hours ago by ewallace on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

Unfortunately main issue is that ASUS is refusing to accept that they make some mistake on this version of asus Transformer prime. 1 - GPS sensor...

16 hours ago by fgvrg56 on Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Wi-Fi & GPS problems?

@Marcus A fair question. Just talked with Archos which said it was working on an announcement for next week....

17 hours ago by Ben Woods on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Any update on this, considering the claimed "first week of February"?

18 hours ago by Marcus Karlsson via Facebook on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Bill Goodrich : Just as al_langevin pointed out, with Windows Server 2008 there is no Services for Macintosh anymore. It's gone, not available....

1 day ago by apexwm on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Intel chips to go their own way

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

Intel opens up 'Manitoba' territory

IDF: New Pentium 4 to debut in 2003

Intel powers up smartphone chip

Intel sets Banias release date

Intel to boost mobile chips

Post your comment

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in Application Development

Perens: Linux could learn from Apple

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Test Analyst - Business Intelligence /Data Warehousing

Test Analyst - Business Intelligence /Data Warehousing

Technical MI Manager - 50-60k - Leeds

Inside ZDNet UK

A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

2012 Predictions: VCE FastPath, VI SAN Probe & Hadoop

BlackBerry Bold 9790

Case study: How cloud enables growth

Ten factors that make Ubuntu 11.10 a hit

Toshiba Portégé Z830-10P Review

BT's archive: Pictures from the vault

News & Analysis

Reviews

Blogs

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features

ZDNet UK / News and Analysis / Application Development

Intel chips to go their own way

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

Post your comment

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in Application Development

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Inside ZDNet UK

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features