News: Intel debuts Sandy Bridge

Intel yesterday revealed several significant design features for the company's 2011 second Generation Intel Core processor family at the annual Intel Developer Forum.

The new features will further extend Intel's chip performance and battery life, and add a number of visually related features which will be incorporated.

Codenamed ‘Sandy Bridge’, the chips will be based on Intel's first new ‘visibly smart’ micro-architecture produced using 32-nanometer process technology with second- generation high-k metal gate transistors.

"The way people and businesses are using computers is evolving at an explosive rate, fueling demand for an even more powerful and visually appealing experience," said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group.

"Our upcoming 2nd Generation Intel Core processor family represents the biggest advance in computing performance and capabilities over any previous generation. In addition to offering these features inside Intel-based laptops, we plan to scale these advances across our server data center and embedded computing product portfolio."

The processor family will include a new ‘ring’ architecture that allows the built-in processor graphics engine to share resources such as cache, or a memory reservoir, with the processor's core to increase a device's computing and graphics performance while maintaining energy efficiency.

The second generation Intel Core processor also includes an enhanced version of Intel Turbo Boost Technology. This feature automatically shifts or reallocates processor cores and processor graphics resources to accelerate performance, tailoring a workload to give users an immediate performance boost when needed.

Intel's new processor graphics delivers enhanced visual features focused on the areas where most users are computing today: HD video, 3-D, mainstream gaming, multi-tasking, online socialising and multimedia.

To obtain and view video faster, Perlmutter demonstrated hardware accelerated video editing using the architecture's dedicated silicon for media processing, which allows users to quickly convert video to other formats.

The 2011 chips also come with Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX). AVX delivers improved performance, rich functionality and the ability to better manage, rearrange and sort data. A new 256-bit instruction set accelerates floating point intensive applications such as digital photo editing and content creation.

Laptops and PCs powered by the second generation Intel Core processor family are expected to be available early next year.

Intel debuts Sandy Bridge

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