Intel Penryn & Nehalem Information

This afternoon the Intel camp is sharing some new public information in regards to Penryn and Nehalem. The Penryn family will support increased performance per given clock cycle, increased power frequencies, extended energy efficiency, a 45nm High-K metal gate process technology, and a range of processors against all target markets (desktops, notebooks, and servers). The Intel 45nm High-k process will result in new features and an elevated level of performance while sticking with cost effective die sizes. These new processors will also introduce the SSE4 instruction set and deliver new levels of energy efficiency (Deep Power Down Technology).

Another slide also consists of the new optimized family products, which are the Intel Xeon processors, Core 2 Extreme desktop processors, and Core 2 mobile processors. The new mobile parts are compliant with existing mobile form factors, remain dual-core while being able to share up to 6MB of L2 cache, feature Deep Power Down Technology, and will also introduce Enhanced Dynamic Acceleration Technology. For desktop users, the new Penryn parts will breach the 3GHz marker again while being second-generation quad-core CPUs. The new quad-core CPUs will have 12MB of L2 cache. For the Penryn-based Xeons, they too will exceed 3.00GHz and its LGA-775 socket will operate with a 1600MHz bus and ship in both dual and quad core flavors. Nehalem represents Intel's next-generation platform micro-architecture. This architecture will be able to handle 1 to 16+ threads utilizing 1 to 8+ cores and is also scalable and configurable when it comes to the cache, interconnect, and memory controller.

Intel's Deep Power Down Technology (IDPDT) will be available on the mobile Penryn processors and is a new power state that aims to significantly reduce processor power consumption while the system is idling -- ultimately to extend the battery life of your notebook or other mobile device. Meanwhile, Intel's Enhanced Dynamic Acceleration Technology is capable of slowing down or accelerating individual processing cores based upon the load and number of threads.

Penryn is currently on target for production in the second half of this year while Nehalem is forecasted for next year. There are more than fifteen 45nm Hi-k CPUs in development and two 45nm manufacturing fabs will be in production by the end of the calendar year. We hope to be delivering more information shortly on Intel's other new and upcoming products.

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