Intel Processors on the Highway and in your Pocket

CeBIT, Hanover/Feldkirchen, 3rd March 2008 – This year, Intel is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and the new Intel processors, based on Intel's 45nm HKMG semiconductor technology, signal the biggest breakthrough in the semiconductor industry since the company was founded. Under the motto of IT STARTS WITH THE CHIP Intel announced the brand name for its new processors and platforms at CeBIT 2008: the new Intel® Atom™ processor, for devices where low power consumption is vital, and the Intel® Centrino®2 processor technology for Intel's next generation notebook platform. The Intel Atom processor will also be available to consumers in a car infotainment system by Harman/Becker next year. At the same time, Intel announced that its high-end platform for desktop PCs, comprising the Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor QX9770 and the Intel® X48 Express chipset, along with the new Intel® Xeon® LV processors for servers will be launched in March.

45nm HKMG semiconductor technology has once again allowed Intel to double the number of transistors that fit on a chip in comparison to the previous 65 nm process. At the same time, Intel has considerably reduced leakage current and further boosted energy efficiency. This required the use of new materials - hafnium in the insulating layer and a metal gate.

Intel Processors in Your Pocket

Processors based on Intel's 45nm HKMG semiconductor technology consume less power while at the same time providing higher performance: compared with the 65nm process, the new processors reduce power consumption by half at the same performance level, or boost performance by up to 38 percent without more power consumption. This will allow for increasingly thin form factors for mobile devices in future. In combination with longer battery lives, this is Intel's contribution to preparing the way for mobile Internet. Social networking lets people who are physically apart communicate with each other in a completely new way. Currently, factors such as performance, energy consumption, compatibility and converging applications, along with area-wide wireless connectivity and comparatively expensive connections are still obstacles. Intel responds to these challenges with its innovations: for example, the Intel® Centrino® Atom™ processor technology is Intel's first platform for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), and will become available in the first six months of 2008. The platform comprises the Intel® Atom™ processor, which supports clock speeds of up to 1.86 GHz and an L2 cache size of up to 512 Kbytes, along with a matching chipset. The processor is about the same size as a one Euro cent coin and consumes less than 2 watts at full load. MIDs based on the new Intel Centrino Atom processor technology will be available as of the summer 2008 from Aigo, Asus, BenQ, Clarion, DiGiFriends, Gigabyte, Lenovo, LG, Toshiba and others. Additionally, Panasonic has announced that the release of the first Toughbook based on the Atom processor.

Intel Processors on the Highway

The Intel Atom processor will be providing computational power to cars in future. In cooperation with Harman/Becker Intel presents the Harman Power Connect (HPC) car infotainment system, which is based on the Intel Atom processor. In future, users will profit from standards-based hardware and software that is both flexible and scalable. This will mean far shorter lead time to market maturity than in the past. On top of this, developers will be able to implement a variety of HMI (Human Machine Interface) features that support all kinds of digital media and future standards. For example the platform integrates WiFi, WiMax, Bluetooth, 3G, USB, SD/MMC, MODST and a CAN bus connector, while at the same time offering support for popular media players and UPnP (Universal Plug-and-Play) devices. Cars with this technology will be available from various manufactures as of 2009.

40 Years of Intel and 5 Years of Intel Centrino Processor Technology
Besides its 40th anniversary, Intel is also celebrating the fifth birthday of the Intel Centrino processor technology. Since the product launch at CeBIT 2003, Intel has continually improved this notebook platform. The next generation will be launched in the second quarter of 2008 under the new name of Intel Centrino 2 processor technology. Intel will thus address current customer requirements for longer battery life, improved performance, and the ability to play high resolution movie formats, such as Blue Ray. The 60 percent smaller package will give manufacturers the ability to offer smaller and thinner form factors. Business customers in particular will be interested in the ongoing developments of Intel® Active Management Technology.

Intel Processors for High-End Gaming and Performance Aficionados

Intel exhibited two new high-end chips for desktop users. The Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor QX9770 offers 12MB L2 cache, a fast 1600 MHz system bus and four cores with a clock speed of 3.2 GHz. In combination with the Intel® X48 Express chipset the new platform achieves groundbreaking results in current benchmark tests and masters even the most exacting of tasks. The platform's target group is extremely demanding when it comes to performance, and this explains the choice of processor multiplicators. These high-end chips will be available to consumers as of March.

Intel Processors in the Server Room

Server applications will also benefit from new processors based on 45nm HKMG semiconductor technology starting in March. The power saving, new Intel® Xeon® LV 5400er quad core processors and Intel® Xeon® LV 5200er dual core processors are mainly designed for servers to combat the increasing demand for performance and lack of space in data centres. Low Voltage server processors make it possible to pack server racks more densely without impacting performance.
At CeBIT Intel is also exhibiting the Sun Modular Datacenter – a solar-powered, mobile data centre in a standard container. A solar power plant by solar cell manufacturer Solar Energy AG, and the photovoltaic module and system integrators GSS Gebäude-Solarsysteme GmbH and ALTEC Solartechnik supplies the electricity needed to run the data centre. The system's nominal power rating is around 10 KWp (Kilo Watt peak). In 2004, this output would not have been sufficient to power a server with a processing power of 5.1 M bops. At the time, a system with this performance required 48kW. As server with Intel® Xeon® 5400er quad core processors consumes just 6kW4 at the same performance level, and power consumption could be reduced even further using the new Intel® Xeon® LV processors. Based on these figures, operations using a similar solar power plant are conceivable today.