Artikel dari Mercurynews, korannya Silicon valley (sorry bhs. Inggeris) : A new flagship for Intel
ANALYSTS: DESKTOP CHIP WILL HAVE ROOTS IN PENTIUM M LAPTOP CHIP By Dean Takahashi Mercury News In a move that could determine whether Intel will continue to dominate the $30 billion market for personal computer chips, the Santa Clara company plans to unveil a new flagship ``next-generation'' microprocessor for desktop PCs for the first time in almost five years. ``This is a huge bet,'' said Rob Enderle, an analyst at the Enderle Group in San Jose. ``They have to stick this one. They have been having execution problems and have improved lately but still have to show they can do it.'' Intel CEO Paul Otellini will release some details about the desktop PC chip in a keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco on Aug. 23, according to Intel spokesman Bill Calder. He said the next-generation chip would be sold in the second half of next year. Industry observers are expected to hang on every detail, since this chip will be the new flagship for Intel's microprocessor franchise. The pressure is on the world's biggest chip maker to build and protect the franchise with a winning design, particularly since Intel has had execution problems on some of its recent chip projects. It isn't clear if Intel will call the chip the ``Pentium 5.'' The company launched its Pentium 4 in November, 2000, but the relatively poor performance of that chip gave rise to criticism among industry engineers. Intel's rival, Advanced Micro Devices, took advantage of Intel's weakness by launching its Opteron chip in 2003. That chip is widely acknowledged to be better designed than the Pentium 4, which paid less attention to low-power requirements and counted on clock frequency for better performance. With the Pentium 4, Intel tried to keep cranking up the performance of its chips by increasing the frequency -- the number of operations a chip does in one second. But it hit a wall on how far it could go without encountering power problems. As chips become densely packed with transistors and increase the frequency to billions of operations per second, they tend to require more power, causing excessive heat problems. AMD has gained a few points of market share recently, especially in servers for large businesses, where its share has grown from 5 percent last year to 11 percent in the second quarter, according to Mercury Research. But Intel has held on to its dominant market share, with roughly 82 percent of the PC microprocessor market in the second quarter. AMD has 16 percent, according to Mercury Research. Calder declined to provide more details about the chip. But analysts believe it will have roots in its Pentium M laptop chips, launched in 2003. The big hint came from Otellini himself, who said at the company's analyst meeting that future desktop designs would come from mobile chip roots because of the low-power requirements that are becoming a necessity for all chips. Intel canceled some chips in the past due in part to the power problem, which analysts have said is the reason Intel isn't moving forward with the Pentium 4 architecture. ``This is the first time that Intel has taken a chip from mobile space to other areas,'' said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at Insight 64. ``It reflects a major change in the way that Intel is viewing the world.'' Odds are good that Intel's engineers in Israel are leading the project, since they created the Pentium-M design. Sean Maloney and Dadi Perlmutter, who led the mobility group within Intel, are likely in charge. Analysts believe the chip will have 64-bit technology, or the ability to process chunks of data twice the size of today's typical desktops. The chip will have more than one core, or processor. It could exploit Intel's newest manufacturing technology, which makes chips with circuit widths 65 nanometers in length, compared with the 90-nanometer chips in production today. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. Intel's advance leaves competitor AMD undaunted, said AMD product marketing manager Jonathan Seckler. ``I am confident AMD will continue to lead the pack,'' he said. ``We already have a next-generation architecture.'' ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/vbOolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Official Web Site : http://www.awari.or.id Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asosiasi-warnet/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
