Intel Reveals More 32nm Westmere Details

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, December 17, 2009, 06:41 PM EDT

Intel is planning to show off a myriad of new products at the Consumer Electronics show taking place in Las Vegas in a few weeks, including a whole family of processes built using the company's advanced 32nm High-K / metal gate manufacturing process. On tap will be a number of mobile parts that feature 32nm processor cores linked to 45nm GPUs on a single chip, in addition to a slew of other products related to 3D content creation, WiMax, MIDs and more. Intel has already outlined some of the planned CES highlights right here.

New Intel Processors will be introduced on January 7, 2010

In another post on Intel's website made today, a few documents, pictures and videos have also been released that discuss the company's plans and disclose a number of the features due to arrive with the next-gen mobile CPU+GPU hybrid, codenamed Arrandale--If you remember, Arrandale is a member of the Westmere family designed for mobile platforms. Along with mobile quad-core Core i7 mobile processors we've already shown you, mobile Core i5 and Core i3 processors based on Westmere are on the way as well. We'll give you the full scoop on those as soon as we can. We promise, it won't be long now.

In the meantime, there's a bit more to show you. In the video below, a number of Intel's testing and validation labs are shown working with 32nm Westmere processors.

A few features like Hyper-Threading are discussed in the video along with some information regarding the integration of graphics onto the CPU packaging and the capabilities of Intel's new graphics core. A few image quality and performance details are disclosed towards the end. Intel's Srinivas Chennupaty (Principal Engineer, Westmere Architect) goes so far as to say Westmere offers "everything you ever wanted in a home entertainment system". We know the integrated GPU is a step up from current Intel graphics offerings, how much of a step up remains to be seen, however.

A 32nm CPU and 45nm GPU reside on an Arrandale chip

What will perhaps be most exciting to some of the more hardcore PC enthusiasts among you, Intel also shows off a 6-core Gulftown chip in the video posted above. Gulftown will initially be used in server-class processors, but desktop variants that will be compatible with the current socket 1366 platform are planned as well. We have already talked a bit about Gulftown in previous posts and anxiously await its arrival. If you think a Core i7 975 is fast, think about a chip with 50% more cores and cache, a higher clock speed, and next-gen Turbo Boost technology.

Tags: Intel, Mobile, graphics, GPU, CPU, Core, 32nm, Hybrid, Westmere, Arrandale

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com