Intel unveils Core Microarchitecture, says will slug it out with AMD

Jack Writes:Intel Corp has announced that it will be building on a new line of microprocessors called "quad-core chips" as it attempts to regain lost ground in the market that is currently swinging towards Advanced Micro Devices.

The quad-core chips are basically a package of two dual-core chips, but Intel is apparently in a hurry to bring them on the market as it battles reduced quarterly revenues due to fierce competition from AMD. These next generation computer chip designs are supposed to be more efficient and consume less power. In other words, Intel has taken note of the fact that AMD's performance per watt is giving it a distinct advantage in this market.

"Energy is on everyone's mind. It's the next frontier. Not only has it become a critical concern in our daily lives, it's become a critical concern in just about every platform we have," said Intel's Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner. He was speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. The chips have been dubbed as Intel Core Microarchitecture and are being touted as the next big thing from Intel's stable that is bound to steal the thunder from AMD.

These chips are all set to hit the markets in the latter half of the year and have been codenamed as Conroe for desktop, Woodcrest for servers and Merom for laptops. All these are dual core processors. Rattner also revealed as the processor performance was increasing, they had found that energy consumption was also going up, "We've been studying this for years, and the trend was a bit alarming," he said.

"The amount of energy required to execute a single instruction has increased significantly--well over a factor of four over this time frame." Paul Otellini, Intel's chief executive also spoke at the forum and said that he foresaw a big year for Intel. “We are at one of those dual transitions – a new micro architecture and new silicon technology - and we have the capacity to retake share and that's our statement of intent this year," he told reporters.

Otellini admitted that Intel had been unable to build their chips fast enough last year, but all that was bound to change this year. Intel revealed that it is a part of the Ultra Mobile PC project that has been dubbed as the Origami project by Microsoft.