Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Intel Plans to Overhaul Chip Architecture

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-way-the-old-architecture-is-totally-cool dept.

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Intel is planning to announce an entirely new chip architecture later this month at the company's developer forum, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company isn't discussing details yet, but it's expected that Paul Otellini will discuss a 'technology foundation designed from scratch to improve energy efficiency and make it easier to add more than two processors.'"

4 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. Announcement by Ryan+Stortz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who wants to bet that the announcement includes a integrated memory controller? I wouldn't be suprised if they just licenced Opteron technology from AMD; it would be alot cheaper than developing their own. Although, they could always just outright steal it.

    --
    Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
  2. They have to redeem themselves by realmolo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As we all know, the Pentium 4 is a pretty goofy, shlocky design. The Pentium M is good, but it's essentially a Pentium Pro. That's 10 years old.

    Intle NEEDS to prove that they can still make a good x86 chip from "scratch".

  3. Re:Obligatory obvious sighting by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One has to wonder if Apple had any 'insight' to these plans when they signed the deal.

    Actually, it is pretty likely that Apple was given a full roadmap and a few engineers to explain the whole thing while in in discussions and under NDA. The real questions are did this have anything to do with Apple's decision, is this in response to the deal with Apple, or is this just coincidental.

  4. My guess is a new x86 by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Though they may not want to admit it, Intel knows they've lost the 64-bit format war for desktops at least.

    So probably what the are working on is a next gen x86 architecture. Those don't come out too often, usually the design one and just modify it for a number of years. It sounds like they are going to start using modifiations on their Pentium M for desktops, which is cool since it is efficient both thermally and in terms of what it does per clock, but there's a limited life to it and they know it. The Pentium M is something of a throwback to the P3, which itself is really based on the Ppro design.

    So my guess is Intel figures it's time to unviel a new design for a core, but on x86 architecture.