Intel Discusses Future Plans

heeeraldo writes "Tom's Hardware (unfortunately known for their one-page-stretched-into-nine articles, and endless ads) attended an Intel presentation about their future processor plans. The unsurprising bit: the endless march of additional cores. The surprising part: they're already focusing on 45nm processes." From the article: "Last week, Intel held a series of presentations at its Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro, Oregon, whose facilities represent the main pillar of product design and manufacturing. These presentations included a short tour to the top-notch 65 nm production facility Fab D1D whose specifics Intel is currently replicating to other locations. The primary purpose of this show obviously was to convince around 80 analysts and journalists of the substantial health of Intel's 65 nm fabrication leadership, which is outputting new processors in high volume for launching new Pentium 4 6x1, Pentium D 900 and Core branded (known as Yonah) processors in early 2006."

Comments

The PR War

[yerdaddie]

I couldn't help but think that this is just the newest assult as part of a press-release war between Intel and AMD. Recently, it seems AMD has been taunting Intel about the performance of its dual core technology. So it appears Intel's reponse is to say "your manufacturing process couldn't lithograph its way out of a paper bag."

Re:The PR War

[Malor]

Wow, you know Intel is hurting right now if they're using that argument. This is exactly equivalent to,

AMD: "Your car sucks! Ours is faster, more comfortable, safer, and gets better mileage."
Intel: "Oh yeah? Well our factories are better! Your factories suck!"

If Intel has pulled its head out of its butt and put the engineers in charge again, instead of the marketroids, it could easily come back and eat AMD's lunch once again. They execute better than anybody in the tech business. They are a fearsome competitor. They've marketed themselves into a significant bind, but if anyone can dig themselves out of that jam, it's Intel. 80% market share gives you some leeway for mistakes, even big ones.

However, that said, I don't think 2006 is looking too good for them. If AMD can simplify their lines a little and keep executing as well as they have, they could take a good chunk of marketshare next year. By 2007, I figure Intel is going to be back in the game, and I'm looking forward to whatever they come up with.

This competition is GREAT for us. When Intel isn't challenged, prices stagnate and chips go nowhere. And with the competition this intense, it will be harder for either company to push involuntary DRM hardware.

It is mostly wrong

[Groo Wanderer]

The article is full of problems. Whitefield was canceled a couple of months ago:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27192
There is a lot wrong with the 45nm code names, and in general, it is lacking a lot of info.

If Intel gave him this info, it is blurring the lines for PR purposes, and somewhat flat out wrong. As of Friday, Whitefield was still dead, and the roadmap didn't match up with Intel's internal ones.

There is a bit of right there, but few if anything that can't be found at the usual places.

                  -Charlie

the real question is

[radicalnerd]

how is intel planning on confusing customers with their new naming schemes?

Intel finally catching up ?

[tuxpert]

From TFA - "The introduction of the Merom design will be a turning point in Intel's product policy, because it will be the backbone for all processor families that go into the desktop, the mobile or the enterprise space. In contrast, the desktop and enterprise markets are provided with Pentium 4 and Pentium D NetBurst architecture processors while the mobility CPUs are derived from the more efficient Pentium M design"

Merom being the sucessor to the forthcoming Yonah. Based on the recent AnandTech benchmarks of Yonah against desktop chips , it seems like Intel may not have to play 'catch up' for much longer. Of course, we don't know what else AMD has up their sleeve :)

Re:Quantity better than Quality

[Lonewolf666]

AMD is getting close to starting its second fab in Dresden, Germany. Some time in 2006, it should reach full capacity. So I don't expect a shortage of AMD processors.