Intel Outlines Next-Generation ‘Sandy Bridge’

Intel keeps right on rolling with new architectures, not missing a step for quite some time now. The next generation will likely get its grand unveiling at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco come September, but in the mean time, the audience at IDF China got a bit of a peek at the new processor during one of the keynotes.

The chip comes just as Intel is ramping up a new batch of processors as it is. The Nehalem architecture is approaching its second birthday, but no time for the Terrible Twos. Westmere has begun to displace it already, and now comes Sandy Bridge, the next generation microarchitecture. So what does Intel have in store for its 30-year-old x86 architecture? Hardware Central gets a look.

Intel’s annual Intel Developer Forum (IDF) will take place this September in San Francisco, and undoubtedly the star of the show will be “Sandy Bridge,” the next generation microarchitecture set to succeed “Nehalem,” which is approaching its second birthday.

That’s in keeping with Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) “tick-tock” strategy. The “tick” is a process shrink of an existing architecture. For example, “Penryn” in 2007 was about taking Intel’s Core microarchitecture from 65 nanometers to 45nm, and “Westmere” in 2009 took the Core i7 from 45nm to 32nm.

The “tock” is a new architecture. In 2006, it was Core for desktops and Xeon servers. In 2008, it was Nehalem, sold as Core i3/i5/i7 on the desktop and Xeon. In 2010, that next generation architecture is “Sandy Bridge.” Earlier this week, Intel gave attendees of its IDF Beijing conference an early look.

Read the full story at Hardware Central:


Intel Outlines Next-Generation ‘Sandy Bridge’