More (relatively) low power CPU goodness...

The Inq reports that Intel will launch a pile of low wattage dual core parts on June 22.

• X9100 @ 3.06GHz. 6M cache, $851
• T9600 @ 2.80GHz. 6M cache, $530
• P9500 @ 2.53GHz. 6M cache, $348
• T9400 @ 2.53GHz. 6M cache, $316
• P8600 @ 2.40GHz, 3M cache, $241
• P8400 @ 2.26GHz, 3M cache,  $209

These 1066MHz FSB parts are apparently going to replace a lot of the existing X and T series 7xxx and 9xxx processors.

Later in Q3, the QX9300 @ 2.53GHz, 12M cache at 35W for $1038 will be available for pricey laptops.

More low-price, low-power goodness coming

Digitimes reports that VIA is planning to go 45nm, and that it will join the ranks of dual core processor manufacturers by the end of next year.

Until then, it has revealed some of the features of its Isaiah processor:

• 2GHz processor speed
• 800MHz/1333MHz FSB
• 64K code / 64K data L1 cache
• 1MB L2 cache with 16 way associativity
• 65nm process
• manufactured by Fujitsu
• pin compatible with the C7

The last part is important - as the HP Mini-Note and other popular sub-notebooks use currently use the C7, thus affording them an easy and siginificant performance upgrade.

Via thinks it can ship as many CPU's in the first half of 2008 as it did last year.

65nm Cell processor for servers - is it only a matter of time before it shows up in the PS3?

The new PowerXCell 8i is a far more than a process shrink from 90nm to 65nm. IBM currently runs the processor at the same 3.2GHz as before, so that the power consumption can be lower.

• The new design also uses less expensive DDR2 memory instead of the original Rambus XDR memories, allowing for further potential cost savings;
• Total memory capacity is now expandable up to 32GB.
• Expanded double precision floating point support on all eight Cell cores.
• 190 TFlops of double precision throughput, 5x as much as previous Cell

The "QS22" adapter card will be available at the end of May for $9,995 - it has sockets for two PowerXCell 8i's.

IBM is apparently also considering some other Cell products in the future:

• Multi-Chip modules packing two dies into one package
• 16 and 32 cell cores instead of the current 8

Hmm... I wonder how many Cell cores a future PS4 will have?

Outsourcing processor manufacturing anyone?

Given the reported "Asset light" strategy that AMD may be adopting it should come as no surprise that AMD may be considering outsourcing its processor production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Digitimes reports that it heard from industry sources that TSMC has already started testing procedures for a silicon on insulator (SOI) manufacturing process so that it could potentially produce AMD Fusion CPU's.

Such outsourcing could lead to AMD selling some of its manufacturing assets, the proceeds of which could be used to rebuild its war chest and pay down its debts - a lot of which were incurred in the ATI acquisition.

45nm goodness to come soon...

AMD's 45nm quad core, "Shanghai" is apparently on-track for production to start in the second half of this year. Initially it will be offered as a server product, it will include "coherent" Hypertransport 3.0 for processor to processor communications in multi-socket systems.

Shanghai will be an incremental change to Barecelona, consisting of a geometry shrink to 45nm, some IPC (instructions per clock) and core tweaks - as well as increasing the L3 cache to 6MB.

Potentially more interesting will be next year's "Istambul" six core processor. Slated for Socket F1, the current 1207 pin socket, it is intended to increase performance without having to radically change the AMD architecture by the simple expedient of adding two additional cores, bringing us hex core processors sometime in the second half of 2009.

AMD also apparently plans to introduce a Socket G34 in 2010, and this new socket will apparently bring DDR3 and non-coherent HyperTransport 3.0 with the upcoming RD890 chipset as well as provide an additional HyperTransport link.

In 2010 AMD will also apparently offer six and 12 core Opterons, presumably using a multiple chip per module like Intel, by placing two six core dies into a single package - with a code name of "Magny Cours"

If the past is any indication, these "server" chips will also probably appear as "consumer" chips.

More X3's from AMD

The three new processors are:

• $145 AMD Phenom X3 8450 @ 2.1GHz
• $165 AMD Phenom X3 8650 @ 2.3GHz
• $195 AMD Phenom X3 8750 @ 2.4GHz

(the above numbering scheme leaves an obvious hole for an 8550 @ 2.2GHz)

All of the Tri-Core processors feature:

• 64KB L1 code cache for each core
• 64KB L1 data cache for each core
• 512KB L2 code/data cache for each core
• 2MB L3 code/data cache shared by the three cores
• approx. 450M transistors
• 285mm2 die size

The Phenom processors are built using a 65nm silicon on insulator process and feature a dual channel memory controller, and support DDR2 memory up to PC2-8500.

Source: AMD press release

The Hypertransport channels can be run at up to 1.8GT/sec in socket AM2, and up to 3.6GT/sec in a future socket AM3.

Looks like it'll be a nice one

Intel has a fairly inexpensive Wolfdate slated for release on April 20th, according to website Fudzilla.

It looks like Intel will give this chip a silent launch. The E7200 is a Wolfdale dual core CPU with the cache cut in half, from 6MB to 3MB, to make for a cheaper chip. The Wolfdale series are have 45nm core and it should overclock fairly well. The stock clock for the E7200 is 2.53 GHz, and it has a 1,066 MHz FSB. It will debut for somewhere around a $140 bucks.

Intel Developers Forum news roundup

The Inquirer reports that the latest version of the Intel Itanium, the Tukwila, crashed during its demo at IDF, and you know those small SO-DIMM's in laptops? They are about to be replaced with "Micro-DIMMs" - so we have yet another memory socket coming.

Intel's Atom processor is apparently the choice for Eee-PC style devices - including the next generation Eee-PC 900 (with 8.9" screen) a "Thinno" branded device with a 7" 800x480 screen, and an unnamed thrid dvice running Windows XP.

Intel revealed some more information:

• 0.65W to 2.4W TDP
• Hyper Threading on 533MHz FSB parts
• 400MHz/533MHz FSB
• Virtualization
• SSE/2/3 support
• Enhanced pre-fetcher
• 512K L2 cache

The initial products will be:

• $45 - Z500, 800MHz, 0.65W TDP, 400MHz FSB
• $45 - Z510, 1.1GHz, 2W TDP, 400MHz FSB
• $65 - Z520, 1.33GHz, 2W TDP, 533MHz FSB, HT
• $95 - Z530, 1.6GHz, 2W TDP, 533MHz FSB, HT
• $160 - Z540, 1.86GHz, 2.4W TDP, 533MHz FSB, HT

In case you are curious, here is the link to Intel's IDF press kit.

AMD press releases in brief

AMD has had a busy morning... and fired us three press releases:

"AMD Launches World's First x86 Triple Core Processors"

Yes folks, the tripe core Phenoms are officially launched. These are quad core dies where one core is disabled due to being defective and/or due to wanting to sell a three core sku. AMD says that when these chips are paired with an AMD 780 series chipset, they will improve 3D gaming and HD multimedia experience for their users. AMD did manage to launch them in Q1 - albeit with only three days left in the quarter :-)

"AMD Extends Energy Efficient Processing Leadership with World's First 65W Quad-Core Desktop Processor"

The AMD  Phenom X4 9100e processor has a 65W TDP, allowing for more energy efficient quad core computing. The quad core processor will help with compute-intensive tasks such as h.264 decoding as well as other HD playback and encoding applications. While the press release did not say what speed the 9100e will run at, a quick google search suggests that it runs at 1.8GHz (9x200) with a 1.12Vcore. As more heavily multi-threaded software becomes mainstream, the quad cores will start to pull ahead on the performance curve.

"Four new AMD Phenom(tm) X4 processors pair with AMD enthusiast platform to propel the Ultimate Visual Experience"

Looks like AMD is confident in the B3 stepping of Phenoms; today it announced the immediate availability of four new X4 Phenoms - and is heavily pushing the "Spider Platform" - combining a Phenom CPU with a AMD 790 chipset with a Radeon 3800 series GPU.

$235 AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition - unlocked multipliers are featured in this beastie, with a 2.5GHz clock speed. This is the current top-end processor from AMD, I guess we will have to wait for a 9950 to be announced at a later date.

$215 AMD Phenom X4 9750 - 2.4GHz of quad core goodness, but with locked multipliers.

$215 AMD Phenom X4 9650 - 2.3GHz quad core processor.

$209 AMD Phenom X4 9550 - 2.2GHz quad core processor.

(prices in OEM quantities, as of April 7th, taken from AMD press site)

The pricing is quite interesting - the old Phenom 9500 is priced at $209, so the $209 price on the 9550 with the B3 fix indicates that the 9500 is not long for this world. The old 9600 makes the point even more strongly with its $251 price tag, making it more expensive than the bug fixed 9550 by $36 - no one will buy a buggy chip that costs more than a fixed one!

Looking at the other prices, it becomes pretty obvious that AMD is expecting to ramp to higher clock rates sometime in May, as the 2.3/2.4 GHz parts are priced the same, spelling doom for the 2.3GHz part.

B3 stepping appears to be a "GO"

Digitimes reports that AMD plans to launch B3 stepping Phenom processors within the next two weeks.

• Phenom 9850 @ 2.5GHz
• Phenom 9750 @ 2.4GHz
• Phenom 9650 @ 2.3GHz
• Phenom 9550 @ 2.2GHz
• Phenom 9150 @ ???GHz

Supposedly AMD plans on bringing out higher speed versions in Q3.

Apparently we will also have B3 stepping triple core Phenoms launching in late April, with a 65W TDP.

• Phenom 8750 @ 2.4GHz
• Phenom 8650 @ 2.3GHz
• Phenom 8450 @ ???GHz

AMD will also apparently launch some dual core parts.

• Athlon 64 X2 5800+
• Athlon X2 5600+ Black Edition
• Athlon X2 4600+

And Phenom-based dual core parts by end of Q2:

• Athlon 6250
• Athlon 6050

Orders will stop being taken for some dual core Athlon's

• Athlon 64 X2 6400+
• Athlon 64 X2 6000+
• Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (89W version)

Rumours from the wild side of the net...

Fuad has a couple of posts on AMD's upcoming 45nm Deneb processor...

There will apparently be two dies produced - one with 6MB of shared L3 cache, and one without shared L3 cache.

The L3-less processor (which will still have L1 and L2 caches) will apparently have a 95W TDP, support HT3, and launch this year.

The 6MB L3 cache part will have a much bigger die, as that 6MB of cache takes a lot of transistors. By producing a separete die for the L3-less part, AMD can probably make roughly twice as many 45nm quad cores on the same wafer (as if it had L3 cache). Presumably the TDP will be higher on the part with the L3 cache, and it will also feature a higher price.

Via watch out!

The Register reports that AMD has let the cat... err... the Puma out of the bag. Apparently the Puma may start showing up in notebooks around June, and start to give Intel's Centrino a run for our money. The "Griffin" platform will apparently be based on the existing Turion dual core processor with 1MB of L2 per core along with a mobile version of the 780 chipset - RS780M - giving notebook DX10 support. Apparently the RS780M's built in GPU will support a form of Hybrid Crossfire, which will be welcome news to gamers satisified with previous generation games.

[image2 width=345 height=259]

Digitimes reports that Intel is looking to take market share from Via and SiS with its upcoming Atom mobile processors, and Intel will also manufacture "Little Falls" and "Little Falls 2" highly integrated low cost motherboards for single and dual core Atom processors respectively. Apparently the dual core Atom may be called Diamondville-DC may be introduced at 1.87GHz with 512KB L2 cache and a 12W TDP in a "Ball Grid Array" package meant to be soldered to the motherboard. Leading motherboard manufacturers are also expected to introduce Diamondville boards.

(UPDATE: HKEPC has a shot of the "Little Falls" motherboard. I want several!)
 

Here are some news tidbits from CeBIT

The Register reports that Intel will start to ship Harpertown low voltage processors in the next few weeeks. The 32nm followup, Westmere, is due to appear in 2009, and Sandy Bridge is due in 2010. The server Harpertown parts will have a 50W TDP. The six core Dunnington server processor should appear in the second half of the year; it will also be a 45nm part.

The Inquirer has some shots of AMD's 45nm Shanghai based server demo box - how does a four socket 2U server strike you? It was pretty impressive to see sixteen processor performance charts on one screen; however the processor frequency was not shown. Each processor had 4x64KB data and 4x64KB code L1 caches, 4x512KB L2 caches, and one shared 6MB L3 cache.

GeCube, normally known for making graphics cards, is introducing an EEPC competitor called "Genie PC". What's unique about the Genie is that the 7" 800x480 screen is detachable, and while it is not a touch screen, there is apparently a track pad on its back. I hope they upgrade it to a touch screen! Apparently the Genie will sport 128MB/256MB RAM, and one or two GB of flash. It will run an unspecified embedded Linux system. (update: GizMoDo has some pics)

Marketers choosing a sensible name - news at 11.

Intel has named their new mobile processor and platform (formerly known as Silverthorne and Diamondville) the "Atom" and "Centrino Atom".

The Atom is made with Intel's 45nm Hi-k metal gate process, and information on the net suggests that it will run at 1.6GHz with 512KB of L2 cache, with a 4W thermal envelope.

AMD says B3 fixes TLB erratum

Don't pop the champaigne yet... let's get the silicon out there... but AMD thinks it has the TLB bug licked.

The Inquirer reports that samples are currently being sent to all of AMD's major "strategic OEM partners" and that the early reports on the new B3 stepping Barcelona's are very positive.

Supposedly vendors and system builders can expect volume shipments in late March - so starting Q2 fixed Phenoms should be available.

How low can they go? (dual core prices)

Intel has recently started shipping dual core Celeron E1200's for around $58 - and Digitimes reports that AMD has decided to respond by releasing dual core Sempron processors in China.

The 65nm AMD Sempron 2100+ cpu's run at 1.8GHz and sell for approx. $55 - slightly cheaper than the Intel dual core Celeron. Paired with low cost AMD 690G or RS780 chipset motherboards the new processor offers a low cost platform with integrated video for inexpensive computers.

We don't have any information on the cache size of the new processor at this time.

It is considered likely that Intel will drop its dual core Celeron pricing in response, however it may not be willing to also chop the prices on its IGP chipsets enough to be able to match prices with an AMD IGP offering.

In effect AMD is also competing with itself, as some vendors have the AMD Opteron 1210 1.8GHz 2x1MB L2 cache processor available as low as $60 - only $5 more than the Sempron.

Leaks from a presentation about a Sun/Intel alliance

There is a leaked pdf presentation floating around the internet from a presentation about a Sun/Intel alliance, and it has some juicy details about the upcoming Dunnington server processor from Intel.

The Dunnington is based on the Penryn micro-architecture, and is expected to be the last server processor from Intel to be based on the Core micro architecture before Nehalem is unleashed.

Dunnington is going to be packaged in Socket 604, and as such is supposed to be compatible with a range of existing server boards for Tigerton based Xeon's. With a 130W TDB, Dunnington is a good choice for blades and other densely packed servers.

Dunnington has six single-threaded cores, with each core having a 3MB L2 cache. All six cores share a very large 16MB cache. The new SSE4 instructions will be supported, and the chip has 40 bit physical addressing allowing for a massive 1TB of memory.

The 1066MHz FSB will be the greatest limitation of the design, but given the shared L3 and new bus interface unit, it should not be difficult for Intel to offer Dunnington with a 1333MHz or 1600MHz FSB should it choose to do so.

More laptop processors from Intel in April

Digitimes reports that Intel will be releasing eight new mobile processors for the Santa Rosa platform in April.

• $134 - Celeron 570 on April 6th
• $86 - Celeron 550 on April 20th
• $107 - Celeron 560 on April 20th

Later in April:

• $161 - Celeron 723, 1.2GHz, 1MB,10W
• $262 - U3300, 1.2GHz, 1MB, 5.5W
• $262 - SU9300, 1.2GHz, 3MB, 10W
• $289 - SU9400, 1.4GHz, 3MB, 10W
• $284 - SL9300, 1.6GHz, 6MB, 17W
• $316 - SL9400, 1.86GHz, 6MB, 17W
• $284 - SP9300, 2.26GHz, 6MB, 25W
• $316 - SP9400, 2.4GHz, 6MB, 25W

As always, the prices are in OEM quantities.

Ahh... I love processor price drops!

Digitimes reports that Intel will be lowering some 65nm processor prices soon - no doubt to clear existing stock.

April 20:

• Q6600 2.40GHz, 1066FSB, 8MB drops to $224 (from $266)
• Q6700 2.66GHz, 1066FSB, 8MB drops to $266 (from $530)
• E4600 2.40GHz, 800FSB, 2MB zdrops to $113 (from $133)
• E2200 2.20GHz, 800FSB, 1MB drops to $64 (from $84)
• E2180 2.00GHz, 800FSB, 1MB drops to $64 (from $74)

This is pretty much the death of the E2180 - why would anyone buy it instead of the faster E2200 at the same price?

A couple of new SKU's on March 2nd:

• E4700 2.60GHz, 800FSB, 2MB, 65nm $133
• E2220 2.40GHz, 800FSB, 1MB  65nm $84

And one more on April 20:

• E8300 2.83GHz, 1333FSB, 6MB, 45nm, $162

And another one May 11:

• E7200 2.53GHz, 1066FSB, 3MB, 45nm, $133

AMD open sources its "Framewave version 1.0" Performance Library

AMD has open sourced its multi-threaded performance library in order to assist developers in coming up with applications that scale well on multi-core processors.

The library was developed over three years, and it features over 3200 functions targeted at image and signal processing. AMD is intending to further optimize and add to the library.

The library is API level compatible with Intel's "Integrated Performance Primitives" - which is an acceleration library made available by Intel.

WARF claims Intel used its patented design without compensating it.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation claims that Intel absconed with its IP.

The complaint charges that in 1998 four researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus, including the current chair of its Computer Science department, a Professor Gurindar Sohi, developed a way to enhance instruction level parallelism in microprocessors, specifically a speculation circuit that helps execute instructions out of order.

WARF claims they contacted Intel in 2001 and tried to get Intel to license the technology, and as no deal was struck, it is now asking the court to stop Intel from infringing the patent (ie stop shipping Core 2's) and for fees and damages.

Intel tidbits released at 2008 International Solid-State Circuits Conference, San Francisco, CA

Intel has released some information about Silverthorne, its upcoming x86 design for UMPC's and laptops.

Justin Rattner, Intel's CTO told ZDNet.co.uk that Silverthorne was:

• fully Core 2 Duo compatible
• hyperthreaded
• Virtualization support
• usable performance at 1/2W
• dynamic power usage - it will use more power when more performance is needed

There was also some news on the Tukwila front:

• 65nm Itanium based design
• 2 Billion transistors
• 30MB of on-chip cache
• dual integrated memory controllers
• QuickPath interconnect
• runs at up to 2GHz
• multi-threaded quad core (eight threads total)
• more than twice Montvale 9100 performance
• uses only 25% more power than Montvale 9100

Intel was also talking about phase change memory, a possible successor to flash. This technology will store two bits per cell by storing one of four possible states in each cell. Intel also apparently discussed a new type of DRAM that is as fast as SRAM, but with twice the density.

Changes afoot?

Three triple core Phenom processors were supposedly going to be next month - but maybe only two will be launched afterall.

According to rumours, the Phenom 8400 (2.1GHz) and 8600 (2.3GHz) will still be launched at CeBIT, however the 8700 may never see the light of day, replaced by the B3 stepping based 8750 which will be accompanied by the B3 stepping 8450 and 8650.

In case you are wondering, the 8x00 parts will be B2 stepping, and the 8x50 parts will use the newer B3 stepping, supposedly fixing the TLB erratum.

Supposedly the quad core Phenom 9700 (2.4GHz) and 9900 (2.6GHz) will also pull a vanishing act in favor of the B3 based 9750 and 9950.

AMD tries to reassure partners it will not miss its milestones this time.

[image1 width=340 height=231] 

I hope Digitimes report is right.

I really don't want AMD's 45nm processors to be delayed - especially since AMD is apparently promising some new goodies.

The new processors will apparently consume less power and have better performance - I think we can attribute the better power consumption to the geometry shrink, and the better performance is likely greatly due to increasing the size of the L3 cache from 2MB to 6MB.

The initial 45nm parts will apparently be socket AM2+ parts supporting DDR2-1066, to be followed by socket AM3 parts supporting both DDR2 and DDR3-1333 in Q1 2009

Intel betting the farm - or at least the Itanium - on Quickpath

Intel's new Tukwila server chip (latest member of the Itanium architecture family) is apparently about to see light of day - and it is a doozy in a number of ways:

• 65nm process
• 21.5x32.5 square mm die
• four dual threaded cores
• 30MB of cache
• QuickPath links (NO FSB! - four links for linking to other processors, two half links for I/O)
• up to 96GB/sec peak processor to processor data transfer (over the QuickPath links)
• memory bandwidth up to 34GB/sec

The question is - will it actually perform like that?

Currently, AMD has quite a lead in total I/O throughput thanks to its Opterons having three HyperTransport channels in addition to dual memory channels; QuickPath (formerly known as CSI) is trying to change that, promising higher bandwidth.