Sunday, November 30, 2008

Intel Details Upcoming New Processor Generations


Marking the next step in Intel's "tick-tock" product strategy and cadence to deliver a new process technology with an enhanced microarchitecture or entirely new microarchitecture every year, Intel Corporation will begin producing its next-generation Penryn family of processors in the second half of this year. These new processors benefit from enhancements to the Intel® Core™ microarchitecture and also Intel's industry-leading 45nm Hi-k process technology with its hafnium-based high-K + metal gate transistor design, which results in higher performance and more energy-efficient processors.


Intel has more than 15 45nm Hi-k product designs in various stages of development, and will have two 45nm manufacturing fabs in production by the end of the year, with a total of four in production by the second half of 2008 that will deliver tens of millions of these processors. Below are many of the details of the Penryn processor family and a glimpse into some of the key features of Intel's future generation of processors, codenamed Nehalem.

Penryn Family Microarchitecture Innovations

A Range of Products-- Six Penryn family processors, including dual- and quad-core desktop processors and a dual-core mobile processor are all under the Intel Core processor brand name as well as new dual- and quad-core server processors under the Intel® Xeon® processor brand name. A processor for higher-end server multiprocessing systems is also under development. As previously noted, Intel already has a total of 15 45nm products scheduled.

Technical Marvel-- 45nm next-generation Intel® Core™2 quad-core processors will have 820 million transistors. Thanks to our high-k metal transistor invention, think of 820 million more power efficient light bulbs going on and off at light-speeds. The dual-core version has a die size of 107mm2, which is 25 percent smaller than Intel's current 65nm products - and quarter of the size of the average U.S. postage stamp - and operate at the same or lower power than Intel's current dual-core processors.

Deep Power Down for Energy Savings, Improved Battery Life-- The mobile Penryn processor has a new advanced power management state called Deep Power Down Technology that significantly reduces the power of the processor during idle periods such that internal transistor power leakage is no longer a factor. This helps extend battery life in laptops. This is a major advancement over previous generation industry-leading Intel mobile processors.

Intel Dynamic Acceleration Technology Enhanced Performance for Single Threaded Apps-- For the mobile Penryn processor, Intel has enhanced the Intel® Dynamic Acceleration Technology available in current Intel Core 2 processors. This feature uses the power headroom freed up when a core is made inactive to boost the performance of another still active core. Imagine a shower with two powerful water shower heads, when one shower head is turned off, the other has increased water pressure (performance).




Sunday, November 9, 2008

About the VIA Nano Processor

The first 64-bit, superscalar processors in VIA's x86 platform portfolio, VIA Nano processors have been specifically designed to revitalize traditional desktop and notebook PC markets, delivering truly optimized performance and security for the most demanding computing, entertainment and connectivity applications.

he VIA Nano processor family leverages advanced 65 nanometer process technology for enhanced power efficiency, and augments that with aggressive power and thermal management features within the compact 21mm x 21mm nanoBGA2 package for an idle power as low as 100mW (0.1W), extending the reach of power efficient green and silent PCs, thin and light notebooks and mini-notes around the world.

VIA Nano Processor does well in Sandra 2009

a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, showed that the cryptographic performance of the VIA Nano processor is the most power efficient on the market, due to its dedicated VIA PadLock™ Security Engine, a suite of security tools integrated directly into the processor die.

The hardware security implementation within the VIA Nano processor means that user data is handled more efficiently and safely by circuitry deep inside the silicon, rather than by using more vulnerable operating system, memory and software resources.

The benchmarking of the 1.3GHz VIA Nano processor using SiSoftware's newest release of the SiSoftware Sandra 2009 diagnostic utility showed the VIA Nano processor performing the cryptographic tests at a blazing 765MB/s of bandwidth, over 93% faster than a 3.2GHz Intel® Core™2 Quad QX9770 processor, yet using a mere 5% of the power.

"Fast, power efficient and safe data encryption are quickly becoming a top concern of mobile PC users," said Richard Brown, Vice President of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "Data protection and identity theft for lost and stolen devices are issues that are compounded by the growth of the mobile computing market, key areas where the VIA Nano processor can significantly help protect users data."

"Cryptography has become an important part of our digital life: it allows us to conduct safe transactions online, certify programs and services, keep our data secure and much more." said C. Adrian Silasi, CTO, SiSoftware. "The speed at which cryptographic operations (encryption, decryption, hashing, signing) can be performed is thus very much important."

VIA Nano Processor does well in Sandra 2009

a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, showed that the cryptographic performance of the VIA Nano processor is the most power efficient on the market, due to its dedicated VIA PadLock™ Security Engine, a suite of security tools integrated directly into the processor die.

The hardware security implementation within the VIA Nano processor means that user data is handled more efficiently and safely by circuitry deep inside the silicon, rather than by using more vulnerable operating system, memory and software resources.

The benchmarking of the 1.3GHz VIA Nano processor using SiSoftware's newest release of the SiSoftware Sandra 2009 diagnostic utility showed the VIA Nano processor performing the cryptographic tests at a blazing 765MB/s of bandwidth, over 93% faster than a 3.2GHz Intel® Core™2 Quad QX9770 processor, yet using a mere 5% of the power.

"Fast, power efficient and safe data encryption are quickly becoming a top concern of mobile PC users," said Richard Brown, Vice President of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "Data protection and identity theft for lost and stolen devices are issues that are compounded by the growth of the mobile computing market, key areas where the VIA Nano processor can significantly help protect users data."

ASUS' Latest Motherboard with Digital Home Features

ASUS Technology has recently launched its latest motherboard, which features several digital home functions, support for Intel's Core2 Extreme and Core2 Duo processors and ATI CrossFire graphics - the P5W DH Deluxe.

Company representatives said in several statements that this 'deluxe motherboard' offers multimedia entertainment, wireless networking, data protection, easy access and management of various functions without being restricted by the computer desk.

A new feature - the EZ-Backup - enables users to back up hard drive data without the need of complicated software configurations.

Consequently, the user can utilize the SATA2 technology to arrange RAID 1 (default) or RAID 0 systems without BIOS or any other setup process.

ASUS delivers a DH Remote used to turn the computer on and off, activate/ suspend mode and, more important, to access and manage the various digital home features offered by the P5W DH Deluxe. But the remote also delivers traditional functions, such as volume control, play, pause, fast forward and rewind.