Intel going 32nm in 2009

Robert Hallock 10 Feb, 2009 at 3:05pm ET Article published in Tech

Intel has freshly announced that processors based on their new 32nm fabrication will be available by the end of the year.

The move is one piece of a broader initiative that will invest $7 billion over two years to create additional 32nm fabs in the United States. The investment will focus on improving or converting existing 45nm sites in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. Intel states that their investment will help create more than 7,000 high tech/high-wage jobs in the United States alone.

Intel’s investment will be made at existing manufacturing sites in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico and will support approximately 7,000 high-wage, high-skill jobs at those locations — part of a total Intel workforce of more than 45,000 in the U.S.

New processors based on the 32nm technique are the smallest produced to date, and should begin to appear in the fourth quarter of the year. Collectively known as the Westmere family of processors, parts based on the design will include a sexa-core version of the Nehalem known as the Gulftown, the mobile-oriented Arrandale GPCPU, the desktop-oriented Clarkdale GPCPU, and the server-bound Clarksfield.

Other changes coming to bear with Westmere include new instructions for cryptographic/AES acceleration and the abandonment of tri-channel DDR3 in favor of dual channel designs.

Intel executives were on hand in San Francisco to shadow the announcement with a 1 PM EST demonstration of Arrandale hardware as seen below.

This 32nm Arrandale GPCPU marries two processing cores and a GPU in one package

The 32nm Arandale plays video from its on-die GPU; we can also see that its two cores use hyperthreading

The 32nm Arrandale plays video from its on-die GPU; we can also see that its two cores use hyperthreading

While considerable ecosystem and platform work is still required to fully realize a 32nm processor lineup, 2010 is already looking smaller, cooler, and more overclockable.

Comments

10 Feb 2009 ~ 3:37pm BuddyJ Harder better faster stronger.

I like it.
10 Feb 2009 ~ 4:01pm Blue_Dog the technology have improving lots since the first generation of desktop

what can we do with old stuff? rejects, recycle etc??????

anyway, I like it
10 Feb 2009 ~ 4:44pm Leonardo Having watched the fast march of computer technology, we would become accustomed to its high rate of advance, or so it would seem. 32nm, already? That merits one of my ever so articulate comments - WOW! Really now, it wasn't that long ago we were smuggly chugging away with our high-speed, 130nm Athlon Thunderbirds. What was the original Pentium, 180nm interconnects? It wasn't that long ago, was it?

what can we do with old stuff? rejects, recycle etc??????

You sell it when it's aging, but before it's considered "ancient." When it's ancient, the owner (fortunately not you) then tries to unload it on Craigslist for two or three times its real value, gives up, and gives it to a relative, who then in turn tries to unload it....

Eventually it becomes part of an earthen damn spanning *11 rivers in rural Butkrakostan. Some old items though, may have more specific uses. For example, the US Air Force is experimenting with dropping 21" CRT monitors out of C-130 aircraft. They've had some success demolishing stout mockups of concrete structures.

* Actually, there is only one river in Butkrakostan. It has 11 different names, owing to the 11 different tribes in that area all making claims to the banks of the river.
11 Feb 2009 ~ 12:45am Komete Interesting. Man that is a small CPU cooler on that thing. I have to give it to intel. They are really hammering them out. Also it's interesting they are moving away from triple channel and back to dual channel.
11 Feb 2009 ~ 12:47am BuddyJ Guess they ran out of room to fit a third channel in there.
11 Feb 2009 ~ 12:57am Thrax Dual channel benchmarks identically to tri, so I imagine they did it for reasons of cost.
11 Feb 2009 ~ 1:13am Komete Thankfully, they didn't go the route of some really exotic memory like they did with Rambus on the I7's. Was that a disaster. I remember my stepfather wanting to buy some more rambus memory for his aging pc and I ended up building a completely faster system for him at nearly the same cost.
11 Feb 2009 ~ 2:16am Thrax There's no compelling reason to.

Random fact: When RDRAM was first available in retail, it was more expensive than crack cocaine ounce for ounce.
11 Feb 2009 ~ 4:28am Tushon Nice report and awesome random fact!
11 Feb 2009 ~ 11:36am DrLiam

Thrax wrote:

Random fact: When RDRAM was first available in retail, it was more expensive than crack cocaine ounce for ounce.

I personally wouldn't want to inject either into my computer. :P

32nm sounds very exciting and I can't wait to see what kind of new advances this will encourage. Thanks for sharing!