Intel to reveal 32nm “Westmere” CPUs

 

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By Darien Graham-Smith

Posted on 15 Sep 2009 at 11:26

Intel is to announce new CPUs based on a 32nm process, codenamed Westmere, at next week's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The smaller die will take advantage of the new manufacturing techniques, and is promised to deliver significantly better performance than a 45nm part for a given price and power envelope.

New 32nm desktop and laptop chips should be available before the end of the year, but as yet it's unknown to what extent they'll be compatible with existing motherboards and chipsets.

Also at IDF the company will unveil details of a new embedded architecture, the unusually named "Jasper Forest", which is based on Nehalem (as found in Core i5 and i7 processors) but designed for low-power appliances such as routers and NAS boxes. And Intel will start to talk about its next microarchitecture, "Sandy Bridge", which is set to replace Nehalem during 2010.

Finally, there will be an update on Larrabee, Intel’s x86-based multi-core graphics system. Larrabee has been in planning and development since 2006, but has so far not been demonstrated in public.

PC Pro will be reporting live from IDF next week - keep an eye on this site for the latest developments