IDF: Otellini Touts Intel's Computing 'Continuum'

Intel CEO Paul Otellini on Tuesday regaled Intel Developer Forum attendees with a tale of the "continuum" of computing experiences on devices of many shapes and sizes -- all built on Intel microprocessors, naturally.

"Welcome to the beginning of the continuum," said Otellini, delivering the opening keynote at IDF in San Francisco. "We're building out a spectrum of computing devices on Intel architecture."

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant is working towards a future where computing devices ranging from embedded systems to handhelds to traditional PC clients to servers all "work together in a seamless fashion," Otellini said, walking attendees through several demos of the latest Intel technology.

Intel has also produced a working SRAM cell with its future-generation, 22-nanometer silicon fabrication process. Per tradition at IDF, Otellini held up a 22-nm silicon wafer that represents the 2011 cadence of Intel's Moore's Law-driven "tick-tock" model of alternating die shrinks (Penryn, Westmere) with microarchitecture updates (Nehalem, Sandy Bridge) on a roughly biennial schedule. Chips built on the 22-nm process will contain 2.9 billion transistors, Otellini said.

Lest we get ahead of ourselves, Intel's current "tick" of 45-nm products is set to be succeeded by 32-nm chips, including notebook processors, code-named Arrandale, that are scheduled to ship before the end of this year. In terms of energy efficiency, that new class of microprocessors, code-named Westmere, will benefit from the transistor shrinkage alone, but Otellini said Intel is also baking in new sleep-state features on its 32-nm chips to further save power and extend battery life in notebooks.

In addition, some Westmere chips will have graphics built into the processor package, and Intel's vPro line of business-class hardware platforms will be refreshed with new security and manageability features.

Westmere is the second generation of Intel's high-k metal gate process technology introduced with the 45-nm chips, code-named Penryn. That's important, Otellini said, because while "Intel has shipped 200 million processors on 45-nm high-k metal gate technology, our competition has shipped zero."

Fair enough, though Advanced Micro Devices might reply that its current 45-nm generation of products utilizes immersion lithography, which Intel has yet to transition to -- though it certainly will in the future.

Next: Intel Preps For Windows 7

Meanwhile, Intel is bullish on Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system, ramping quickly in the market. "Personally, I can't wait to install it on my machine," Otellini said.

The Intel boss, who has gained a reputation for aggressive optimism throughout the global economic downturn, predicted that the PC market would recover and could even grow before the year is out.

"I think the PC market is more resilient than some people think," he said. "I think we will see PC unit shipments that are flat to slightly up over 2008. It shows that we have built something that is indispensable."

Otellini also talked up the success of Intel's Atom line of processors for netbooks and other Internet-connected devices. He outlined a product road map for System-on-Chip (SoC) processors based on the Atom architecture, which could be seen as a new "cadence" running alongside but separately from the "tick-tock" model for Intel's PC client and server products.

Over the next several years, the Atom/SoC road map moves from 45-nm products, code-named Bonnell, to chips called Saltwell at 32nm, and on through the as-yet-unnamed 22-nm and 15-nm generations of Intel processor technology.

What's more, Intel is "porting over" the manufacture of Atom parts to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Otellini said. For a company that has been dismissive of the foundry model and likes to bill itself as the only vertically integrated semiconductor company on the planet, that would seem to be fairly big news.

"I can see a future where Intel ships more SoC cores than standard PC cores in the coming years," Otellini said. Could there come a day when Intel is, for all intents and purposes, "fabless" in the manufacture of the bulk of the microprocessors it ships?

"New rules, new markets," Otellini said.