Intel to redesign chips

2007-03-29 13:43

San Francisco - Intel Corp said on Wednesday it is planning a major design change in its chips, and the new design will include a feature used by rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), according to media reports.

Intel said the change is the biggest since it introduced the Pentium Pro family in 1996, and the basic architecture for its new microprocessors, code-named Nehalem, for the first time will include a built-in feature called a memory controller, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition.

That circuitry manages how a microprocessor retrieves data from external memory chips; Intel now incorporates the feature on separate products, known as chip sets, according to the report.

Other chip companies have long integrated memory controllers onto microprocessors, arguing that the approach cuts down on delays as signals move among additional chips, according to the report.

AMD introduced the feature in 2003, gaining a performance boost that has been a major factor in the smaller company grabbing a record 25% of the microprocessor market by the end of 2006, The Journal said. Intel previously argued that it could achieve similar results by expanding the data repository on each chip, known as cache memory, according to the report.

Intel said it also plans to build graphics circuitry onto some Nehalem chips, the Journal said, adding that AMD has signalled similar plans, which were a major reason it forged a $5.4bn deal last year to buy ATI Technologies Inc, a chip maker that specialises in graphics.

Pat Gelsinger, an Intel senior vice president and general manager of its digital enterprise group, said customers will be able to choose among Nehalem chips that have anywhere from one processor core the equivalent of a single electronic brain to eight cores, The Journal said.

Each core will be able to execute two sets of instructions, known as "threads", at the same time, the Journal said, adding that multithread technology makes it possible for an eight-chip to perform up to 16 chores at the same time. Intel's most powerful chips at the moment bundle two dual-core chips in a single package, according to the report.

Nehalem was designed to exploit a new Intel manufacturing technology that can create circuitry with features measured at 45 nanometers, or billionths of a metre, the Journal said.

- Dow Jones