Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 20 August 2008 12:31
Science -
Energy
Page 2 of 3
Looking further ahead, Gelsinger described Larrabee, which will be the company's first many-core Intel Architecture processor family. Intel has yet to disclose how many cores the first Larrabee processor will have.
Larrabee is essentially a GPU (graphics processing unit) using the x86 instruction set and designed to allow each core to handle the full range of tasks rather than the specialisation found in conventional GPUs.
Intel says the first Larrabee product will be aimed at the PC market, provide support for DirectX and OpenGL, and run existing games and other programs.
Experience gained in developing software for Larrabee should spill over to the creation of software for future processors that may have hundreds or even thousands of cores, according to Intel officials.
The company isn't overlooking the mobile market. Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel's mobility group today demonstrated the first working sample of the Calpella platform due in 2009.
"Calpella will redefine how we compute on-the-go by giving users a stunning new computing visual experience, better manageability and security, enhanced turbo mode features and evolutionary power management for notebooks," he said. "It is all about dramatic mobile performance without compromise."
Perlmutter also showcased the quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme processor for 'laptop workstations.' These CPUs are said to be only draw 45 watts of power.
Intel also thinks it has an answer to the problem of lost or stolen notebooks - read about it on
page three.
