Santa Clara, Calif. — Intel will begin shipping its latest Penryn processor family this year, and the chip maker gave a quick glance at its upcoming micro-architecture, dubbed Nehalem, that is slated for production in 2008.
The Penryn and Nehalem processors use Intel’s 45 nanometer Hi-K design. The Penryn engines will come in dual- and quad-core configurations and will be marketed under the company’s Core brand name. The dual-core processors are 25 percent smaller than Intel’s current 65nm products, yet hold 820 million transistors. Four processors can fit on a single U.S. postage stamp, the company said.
The mobile version of Penryn will utilize a new power-saving management process.
Nehalem is now programmed for initial production in 2008 by which time Intel intends to have four fabrication plants making the chips online. Nehalem is dynamically scalable to manage one to 16 threads, in a fashion similar to Intel’s current Hyper-threading technology, and eight or more processor cores.
Pricing was not released for either processor family.
