Intel Reveals Westmere 32nm Roadmap

That announcement was a precursor to a media briefing that was held this afternoon, where all of the focus was directed towards the company's "Tick" phase. As a quick recap, Intel abides by a Tick/Tock methodology, where the Tock is a brand-new micro-architecture, such as Nehalem, while Tick is a revision, which, up to now, has always involved a brand-new process.

As we've known for a while, Intel's first 32nm processors are known as Westmere, which is a follow-up to Nehalem. However, there's a lot more to Westmere than just a die shrink, as Intel has made numerous changes to the architecture. No joke. Intel has either changed or added so much here, that Westmere could almost be considered to be a "Tock" phase. But, Westmere isn't really a brand new micro-architecture, but a revision to Nehalem, with many features tacked-on.

One of the main pieces of information most people are going to look for out of a media briefing like this is the roadmap update, and that's one thing we got. Although most of the talk was about Westmere, we're still far from done with the 45nm offerings, and many more are en route. Take the Lynnfield desktop chip, for example, which is likely to come out as Core i5, and also the mobile counterpart Clarksfield. Both of these chips will be Quad-Cores that feature 8 threads, just like Nehalem. Imagine that... eight threads on a notebook.

Both the desktop Lynnfield (LGA-1156) and mobile Clarksfield (mPGA-989) will become available sometime this year, with the 32nm parts to come later. What's most notable about the 32nm parts though, is the fact that initial models will deliver both a GPU and CPU inside of the same processor.

This is an area where we have to divulge a little more information, because this progression is far too important to just skip through. When launched, Intel will likely become the first to offer a GPU + CPU in one package, the result of which should be IGP graphics performance that is unparallelled to anything before it. It's really hard to conclude on that thinking without testing the processor out for ourselves, but placing a GPU so close to the CPU has got to be something that brings noticeable benefit.

The major changes don't end there, however... even our motherboards will undergo some alteration. Because of the die shrink, and the move of the memory controller onto the CPU, various components have been shifted around, as a result, the Southbridge has been removed entirely. The slide shown below gives an example of the new "2-Chip Solution".