IDF: Intel heralds 32nm and 45nm chips

Intel has shown off the first silicon produced by its upcoming 32nm processing technology.

Chief executive Paul Otellini displayed a test wafer featuring Static Ram (SRam) during his opening keynote at the Intel Developer Forum, claiming that each of the dies contains 1.9 billion transistors.

SRam is commonly used to test new processing technologies, and transistor densities typically do not reflect those in working processors. Intel is scheduled to ship 45nm processors by 2009.

Otellini also revealed that Intel's upcoming 45nm Penryn processor will start shipping on 12 November. A single Penryn die features 410 million transistors.

Intel will launch 20 processors in November, and another 20 in the first quarter of 2007. Otellini boasted that more then 750 systems will feature the Penryn processor when it launches.

Rival chipmaker AMD started shipping its first 65nm chips earlier this month with its 'Barcelona' Opteron processor. Although several system builders have committed to using the new chip, none is currently shipping products.

The Penryn launch will be followed by the Nehalem micro-architecture launch next year. Nehalem will feature eight cores with two threads each on a single die.

Intel has not yet said whether the chip will feature a monolithic design or bundle two quad-core processors on a single processor, similar to the design of its current quad-core processors.

The monolithic design is faster and offers better power efficiency, but is more difficult to manufacture.

Intel also unveiled its Quickpath Interconnect that will be used in Nehalem. The technology replaces the Front Side Bus for Itanium and Xeon processors and allows for third-party application accelerators that plug directly into the processor.

The company said previously that Nehalem will feature an optional integrated graphics processor.

Intel will also offer a vast number of different models, allowing transistors to be used for either processor cores or additional cache memory.

The announcements yielded few surprises, which appeared to be the message Intel wanted to transmit.

Otellini emphasised the need for the technology industry to create new products, arguing that today's niche products will eventually reach a mass audience.

"It is our job as an industry to drive technology from its inception into widespread adoption," he said in his keynote.

Gordon Haff, a principal IT advisor at analyst firm Illuminata, believes that Intel has essentially demonstrated that things are back on track.

"Intel is saying that it is doing what it said it would do year ago. Not much has really changed," he said.