Intel is set to unveil a range of new technologies, including a new two-billion transistor, quad-core Itanium microprocessor codenamed Tukwila, at the International Solid State Circuits Conference this week.
The first version of Tukwila is expected to arrive in the second half of this year, and will replace Intel's previous dual-core sever chip, the 9100 series codenamed Montvale. The Montvale was based on Intel's 90nm process, while the Tukwila is based on a 65nm process.
Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, described the new Itanium processor commenting on the advantages of moving to the quad-core system.
"By so doing we double the performance [compared to the 9100 Montvale] when measured on an enterprise standard benchmarks ... but with only a 25 percent increase in power."
The Tukwila Itanium processor is expected to run at 2GHz with a power consumption of 130W.
The Tukwila processor is also expected to have 30MB of cache, along with Reliability, Availability, Serviceability (RAS) features including a circuit design that has been hardened to resist soft errors -- which reduces the probability of a system crash.
Although the chip has had no instruction-level changes since Montvale, Tukwila will also include dual integrated memory controllers and QuickPath interconnect, Intel's future competitor to AMD's HyperTransport technology.
Like its predecessor, the new Tukwila Itanium processor will be aimed at the enterprise and server space.
Intel's successor from the Tukwila, the Poulson is expected sometime between 2010 and 2011.
Other technologies will be unveiled along with the Itanium processor including a low power process for mobile devices codenamed Silverthorne, and a new type of multi-level phase change memory.
