Intel seems to be pushing Moore’s Law even harder than before.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip making giant confirmed Friday that it is gearing up to release its latest Pentium 4 chip. This one will run at a blazing speed of 2.4 gigahertz, which is 9 percent faster than the current 2.2 GHz model.
The company says the 2.4 GHz chip will retail for $560 if you are buying more than one thousand – the same price as the 2.2 GHz chip – but the difference is that the new chip will eventually be made for 300-millimeter silicon wafers. The processing technology will measure at 0.13 microns, which Intel says is a faster and cheaper way to make the chips.
Intel has been on a tear since this time last year. The company said it is shipping at least 10 percent more products than before. And the future doesn’t seem to be letting up.
In February, Intel showed off its in-the-works Pentium processor, code-named Prescott, running at 4GHz. The next generation processor, slated for 2003, is based on the Intel NetBurst microarchitecture.
Prescott will, among other things, include Hyper-Threading technology, an Intel technology that allows operating systems to view a single physical processor as if it were two.
If Intel continues at this rate, the company may have to change its commercials from highlighting the three-person Blue Man Group, which hawked the Pentium 3 and Pentium 4, to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.