• September 13, 2010 04:31pm EST
  • 1 Comment

Intel's 'Sandy Bridge': New Chip, New Capabilities

By Michael J. Miller

At IDF this morning Intel CEO Paul Otellini and EVP and general manager David Perlmutter formally introduced the "Sandy Bridge" generation of Intel processors, which will be called the second generation Intel Core Processor, and continue to be sold under the Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 and Xeon names. As expected, these new 32nm, high-k metal gate chips, add integrated graphics into the CPU core, new vector commands, and improvements in turbo mode, with graphics being an obvious focus, as they will be marketed with a "visibly smart" tagline.

Perlmutter spent a lot of time in his keynote talking about how the chips not just moved the integrated graphics on to the CPU, but did it in a different way. He said that instead of just using the traditional memory architecture associated with graphics, combining it on die the graphics to use the memory cache on the CPU, which provides a big performance improvement. Another change, he said, was bringing "turbo mode" to the next levels. Compared with the earlier generation of the Core architecture), Sandy Bridge allows changing power to among up to 4 cores and different parts of the graphics.

These chips should show up in mainstream PCs early next year, he said, and in more platforms over the rest of 2011 and 2012. AMD's first "fusion" processor, based on its Ontario processor, is expected at around the same time, though Intel seems to be offering more CPUs cores and is on a smaller process (32nm vs. 40 nm). Obviously, we won't really be able to compare until we see final systems.

Other changes in the chip include a new "ring interconnect," a higher bandwidth, low-latency system for connecting the various components within the processor, including the CPU cores, processor graphics, memory controller, and display. The chips also add Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX), a new 256-bit instruction set designed to accelerate floating point intensive applications such as photo editing.

Demos showed very fast photo editing and video encoding, showing transcoding a 30fps HD video in MediaShow Expresso much faster than on an existing core i7 processor. Also discussed was how the new AVX commands (advanced vector extensions) would enable much faster floating point operators not only for graphics but also for some kinds of financial applications. Perlmutter said these new vector processing commands also let these processors be used in more areas where specialty processors were needed in the past, and he particularly talked about things like packet processing in networking products.

Perlmutter also talked about improved security and trust features, from AES encryption to the vPro technologies.

Another demo talked about real-time capabilities, such as bringing in 8 simultaneous HD feeds and being able to do real-time analytics on these, such as counting people walking into a store.

Other demos talked about using sensors to connect to chips for new gaming applictions, as well as an interactive portal with a 3D interface.

Perlmutter started his talk by suggesting that computers had a long way to go, to let people do what they really want to on their computer, and talked about how computers had all sorts of ways to go to become more aware of their surroundings. In a demo, he and the CEO of GestureTek showed 3D gesture checking running a computer, moving and zooming pictures, etc. He said AVX instructions would help make it easier; and that all of this was being driven by much lower-cost 3D cameras.

He also talked about bring business intelligence to more businesses. An Oracle executive talked about the Oracle Exadata machine would support Westmere-EX next year; and Perlmutter talked about how each processor would have 10 cores and up to 20 treads, with 2 times the memory capacity. On the consumer side, he said even simple tasks take too long, such 1. 5 minutes to fill your music player, 5 minutes to edit videos, etc. He said all these tasks should take seconds, not minutes

In a following Q&A session, Otellini said he thought the tablet is likely to primarily stay a content consumption platform for a while, due to the need for longer-life and thus lower performance processors.

He said to be successful in the corporate environment, it would need more interoperability with Windows, and said Intel was working with Microsoft on that.

On Larrabee, Perlmutter said it was now being aimed at high-performance computing for 2012, and said the company was already shipping a software development kit. He said Intel was still looking at it for graphics, but for the near future, the company is happy with the graphics it is delivering in the Sandy Bridge generation.

Otellini said the company would continue to work on smartphones, and said he expected Atom-based devices on multiple carriers in the next year. He said the company continues to push its MeeGo environment for devices where vendors want different OS choices.

Perlmutter was also bullish on the use of sensors, both standalone and integrated into SoC (system-on-chip) designs.

Perlmutter would not commit on whether platforms based on Sandy Bridge would support USB 3.0 or the company's LightPeak optical interconnect, saying these were platform issues and would be discussed when the platforms are announced later.

Originally posted to Michael Miller's blog, Forward Thinking.