New Generation Computers

DETAILS HAVE EMERGED of the future design of Intel’s Tejas/Pentium V processor, and of how the chip firm will present it to the world.

The chip will sample internally at Intel in January 2004 and will take between four to six months to get to market. The Pentium 6 will follow a very similar schedule.

The Pentium V is likely to fly along at between 5GHz to 7GHz, have 2MB plus of level two cache, be built on a 90 nanometer process, and have a stackable design.

The processor we believe, sits in the LGA 775 pin socket, and above it is a very thin heatsink. But, according to sources close to the firm’s plans, another permeable heatsink can sit between this and another microprocessor module, giving a stackable design.

The final design of this arrangement is not set in stone.

According to this source, and the details have not been confirmed, a module sitting on top could provide 64-bit extensions.

And the source claimed, Microsoft is ready to launch a version of Windows called Elements with 64-bit extensions.

The idea seems to be that people can buy a 32-bit module, and then add in the 64-bit processor.

There are three samples of an arrangement of the Pentium V here in Taiwan this week, with a very thin processor and lots of wires and patches stuck on it, just to show proof of concept.

The Pentium V could have a front side bus speed of as much as 4000MHz, the source claimed, although this may be reserved for the next chip along, the Nehalem.

INCLEMENT WEATHER ON this side of the Atlantic ocean threw a turquoise parakeet off course today and a note it was holding in its beak fell into the INQUIRER's back garden.

The contents of the note appear to reveal future plans for future Intel desktop processors right up until 2005.

By then, according to the note, Intel will be able to deliver 10.20GHz desktop CPUs codenamed "Nehalem" and produced using 65 nanometer technology.

If Intel manages to migrate away from the 90 nanometer technology it will introduce towards the end of this year, by then the "Prescott" core will deliver at least 5.20GHz using the 800MHz system bus.

The immediate successor to Prescott after it tops out at 5.20GHz will be the "Tejas" core, also produced on a 90 nanometer process and delivering 5.60GHz using a 1066MHz system bus. That's slated to start appearing towards the end of 2004.

Tejas will increase in steady increments which appear to be 6GHz, 6.40GHz, 6.80GHz, 7.20GHz, 7.60GHz, 7GHz, 8.40GHz, 8.80GHz and topping out at 9.20GHz.

The first Nehalem is supposed to appear at 9.60GHz before Intel succeeds in its goal to produce a 10GHz+ chip, the Nehalem, and using a 1200MHz front side bus.

ACES HARDWARE has been prompted to dig through the Intel Museum to dredge up talk of an Intel Pentium 8.

A roadmap "guestimate" posted on Japan's PC watch features a processor code-named Nehalem due, according to the guestimate, in 2005.

Further research uncovered the wise words of an Intel architect, Doug Carmean, who confirmed he had been working on "the next all-new processor, a processor called Nehalem."

The interview is undated but Carmean says the 65nm processor, designed from scratch, could be called the "Pentium 8, or something like that."

Carmean said the processor might tip up in 2004, an assertion that leads us to believe the museum piece has been around for a while.

Intel, of course, won't talk about unannounced products, so we talked to a celebrated chip analyst here in the UK who told us: "It looks like that by the time this chip comes out -- probably in 2010 or something that -- Intel might finally succeed in producing a chip with a brain the size of a bumblebee."

"Better not quote me on that though," he added.

Aces Hardware is here and you can follow the discussion onto their forum.

Here's the PC watch roadmap guestimate. And here's the interview with Carmean from the "Intel Museum".
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