Rambus in Cell Processors and Intel's Dual Core Announcements
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 7, 2005 3:09 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Intel’s Happy about Dual Core
While AMD has been touting dual core for quite some time, it’s looking like Intel will beat them to the punch - at least on the desktop. Intel had a couple of interesting announcements this morning as well.
The first thing they sent out to us was an interesting fact - that Intel has 11 multi-core projects that they’re working on for the 2005 - 2006 time period. Doing a quick number check we’re left with the following breakdown:
3 - “Smithfield” based Pentium 4 8xx series CPUs
1 - dual core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
3 - “Yonah” based Pentium M CPUs (in 2006)
That leaves us with four unaccounted for chips - we’d expect Xeon and Itanium to fill in those blanks nicely.
Intel confirmed what we wrote about in our most recent roadmaps - the first dual core desktop CPUs will be arriving next quarter. Intel is going to be releasing two CPUs, one 90nm Extreme Edition and one 90nm Pentium 4 8xx model.
What’s interesting is that the 90nm dual core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition will feature Hyper Threading support, something that is left out of the regular Pentium 4 8xx series. A Hyper Threading enabled dual core Pentium 4 EE would mean 4 logical processors, capable of executing 4 simultaneous threads across the two physical cores. It looks like the EE chip will be launched with the new 955X chipset (Glenwood), with support for the 1066MHz FSB and DDR2-667 support. We often wondered why Intel wasn’t using the 1066MHz FSB with their Smithfield dual core processors, now we know - Intel’s saving the faster FSB for their price premium Extreme Edition part.
The Pentium 4 8xx CPU, which we’ve already talked about in great detail, won’t have Hyper Threading support and will use the 800MHz FSB. The 8xx series will run on either the 955X or on upcoming 945 based motherboards, but not on present 925/915 solutions.
The 90nm dual core solutions have just completed initial production runs and they should be ready to go by Q2.
Intel also announced that they have production samples of their first dual core 65nm CPUs - none other than Yonah (Jonah). Given the diligence of Intel’s Pentium M team in Israel, it’s no surprise to see a chip that’s supposed to be released at the beginning of next year already up and running in labs.
More info as we get it....
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Ice9 - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - link
#17, first of all, tech companies sue each other all the time.Intel has sued far more companies in its lifetime than Rambus has. Rambus to date has sued what, 5 companies? All for the same patent infringement?
How many companies has Intel or AMD sued over its patents?
Honestly, if you look at how many open patent lawsuits there are for any given technology company, you'll see that Rambus is actually a tame little kitten by comparison. But people love to hate Rambus because they have the better (and more threatening) technology, so it's smear-smear-smear until they hopefully go away.
Well, they aren't. So either embrace the superior technology or let the memory manufacturing cartels tell you that you need the slower stuff that costs more :)
Ice9 - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - link
Rambus is going to be all over the place with Cell. They're using 3 key technologies for Cell, all invented by Rambus.XDR (octal data rate memory), Redwood chip-to-chip internconnects, and Flexphase - which gets around that pesky equal-trace-length limitation that's been dogging DRAM for years.
Thus far, there's simply nothing coming out of the lazy memory manufacturers that make up JEDEC to compete with it. And if they decide to try, they better make sure they steer clear of Rambus patents :)
Oh, and yeah, none of it is vaporware either, at least not on Rambus' side. Toshiba has been sampling XDR for quite some time, and the interconnects have been available for even longer.
All roads still lead to Rambus.
Viditor - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - link
Tujan - "Why leave this out.Hyperthreaded software will remain to those that can pay for the higher priced equipment"Hyperthreading is a way of simulating dual cores without all of the assets to process it. This is beneficial to Intel as they have a problem keeping the pipes fed. However, real dual cores use exactly the same software as HT, but they can process it completely.
Viditor - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - link
March...what retro said is correct.Live - "It looks to me that AMD:s lack of production capacity will really hurt us this year"
I doubt it, though on it's face it might appear so. The missing element is the 90nm ramp...
For example, at 130nm you get 186 candidate 3500+ dice per wafer, and at 90nm you get 329. At the moment, they are only halfway through their ramp and accelerating. Also, we are entering the low demand period...
This might also explain why AMD is delaying most of their desktop dualcore until 2006 (when Fab36 comes on line). 90nm dualcores will be about the same size as their 130nm single core counterparts.
Tujan - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - link
What’s interesting is that the 90nm dual core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition will feature Hyper Threading support, something that is left out of the regular Pentium 4 8xx series. """This is a weird habit of Intels. Leaving a ventured into technology 'out of the next 'great new thing". Software wich was created to take advantage of hyperthreading will no longer be a criteria of software shoppers. No will the work of coders putting their software up to 'spec. be satified of their job well done.
Why leave this out.Hyperthreaded software will remain to those that can pay for the higher priced equipment.Development will remain on those that purchase that equipment.New technology will have another reason to consider themselves 'low end".
- hi ya
Tujan - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - link
retrospooty - Wednesday, February 9, 2005 - link
#20AMD scrapped the K9, and decided to go straight on with the K10 design.
Live - Wednesday, February 9, 2005 - link
It looks to me that AMD:s lack of production capacity will really hurt us this year. The only part that seems able to put up fight against AMD is the ridiculously priced Extreme Editions. On the other hand AMD are already at full capacity and making dual core will only reduce that even more. So Intel faces no real threat. Here in Sweden there has been a shortage of AMD 90 nm for 2 months know so they can’t be making enough to satisfy demand.Hopefully AMD will get the new fab up soon and/or Cell will be as good as can be and we can play with that instead. Intel looks like a nightmare for a value minded costumer.
MarchTheMonth - Wednesday, February 9, 2005 - link
"I'm also looking forward to AMD's K10 (also due out in 2006)!"Considering that AMD has gone by increasing the number scheme by 1, and the current processor core is K8, do you mean K9, or did K10 development jsut look so good that the skipped over K9 and went right to K10? I figure an investor would know...
MarchTheMonth - Wednesday, February 9, 2005 - link
"Yup...SCO :-)"That just totally made my day.