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Intel at 65-nm in 2005?

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Apr 12, 2001
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eeTimes and ZDNet are reporting on Intel's push into the 65-nm chip design space.

Intel announced that they are targeting 65-nm chips in 2005 with SRAM samples at this time. ZDNet provides a good overview of the advantages and challenges in reducing chip size. In short, a smaller chip "improves performance, reduces costs and can potentially cut energy consumption."

Current chips, including the PowerPC 970, have been produced at 130-nm, but both Intel and IBM are ramping up 90-nm chip production at this time. 90nm PowerPC chip technology will be presented in February 2004 by IBM and will presumably make their way into future Macintoshes.

As previously reported IBM also plans on introducing 65-nm chips in 2005 using their SSOI (Strained Silicon on Insulator) technology.
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2003/11/24/intel-at-65-nm-in-2005/
This basically means is that there'll be no time for resting on laurels in the ongoing chip war. The challenge for Apple and IBM will be to develop low-power chips to compete in the laptop space.
 
Well now, we don't hear about Moto doing anything like this. Intel really doesn't have anything until they go 64bit, and no, the itanium don't count

edit: dang, though I was going to have first post
 
I'm guessing IBM will be beating everyone with their quick form factor changes.
 
I think it's fantastic we're back in the game. The mere fact that we're "in competition" with Intel is a testament to how much better off we are with IBM than we were with Motorola.
 
AMD won't have 90nm until around the middle of next yr compared to IBM which will have them probably by the end of Jan. and at the latest by Feb.

I know IBM already has 65nm design which I don't even think Intel has completely worked out yet. I don't even think AMD has 65nm design yet.
 
IBM is partnering with AMD on 65nm R&D

Originally posted by ITR 81
AMD won't have 90nm until around the middle of next yr compared to IBM which will have them probably by the end of Jan. and at the latest by Feb.

I know IBM already has 65nm design which I don't even think Intel has completely worked out yet. I don't even think AMD has 65nm design yet.
Click to expand...

I would expect that PPC at 65nm and AMD at 65nm will be in the same time frame, more or less (since IBM is driving the technology). Isn't nvidia a partner as well? With all of the game console manufacturers, this could become very interesting.
 
amd is our main competitor now. their 64-bit platform continues to expand, while intel's itanium line cant really compete.


and what news from the riddermark..(too much Lotr).. i mean what news/rumors from Moto? will we EVER see a new Moto chip?
 
I used to read this kind of news story with dred, but with the G5 and the IBM roadmap, I say - no problemo.

We can do that. And do it with style.

So nice to be back in the game.
 
Blowing smoke

I won't pretend to be very knowledgeable of the processor industry but I do work in advertising. Notice they do not have 65 nm but "plan" to have one in over a year. What happens physcologically is that people associate Intel with 65 nm. Most people don't read the details. Until they have something of substance then it is not worth much. My impression of this is just INTEL generating spin to try and get a little of the lime-lite dominated by the G5.
 
Re: Blowing smoke

Originally posted by cthorp
I won't pretend to be very knowledgeable of the processor industry but I do work in advertising. Notice they do not have 65 nm but "plan" to have one in over a year. What happens physcologically is that people associate Intel with 65 nm. Most people don't read the details. Until they have something of substance then it is not worth much. My impression of this is just INTEL generating spin to try and get a little of the lime-lite dominated by the G5.
Click to expand...

Intel with 65nm? INTEL generating spin? I'm confused; don't you mean Big Blue here.. ?
 
Re: Blowing smoke

Originally posted by cthorp
I won't pretend to be very knowledgeable of the processor industry but I do work in advertising. Notice they do not have 65 nm but "plan" to have one in over a year. What happens physcologically is that people associate Intel with 65 nm. Most people don't read the details. Until they have something of substance then it is not worth much. My impression of this is just INTEL generating spin to try and get a little of the lime-lite dominated by the G5.
Click to expand...

They are currently sampling SRAM at 65nm. I don't see any vapor or deception here.
 
Originally posted by Trowaman
Competition good

Competition results in lower prices:D So let's kick some butt guys!
Click to expand...

Seeing as IBM is basically the only PPC producer left, and Apple would never switch to Intel, competition isn't really so relevant.
 
Again, not a chip guy butÉI don't think SRAM is quite the same as a working processor. However I don't know the industry well enough to know what it takes to get from where they are right now to having a working processor, butÉ they seem to think more than a year. Again my impression is that this is just PR trying to position themselves as technology leaders before the Christmas rush.

If any techies out there want to explain the ins and outs of all this it would be interesting.

There is not a single company that doesn't generate spin. I heard enough from Motorola over the years. And I am sure I've heard it from Big Blue. But right now about 2 feet from where I am sitting I have a Dual 2 ghrz G5 with 1.5 gigs of RAM(plenty of room to grow), 250 GB HD, 9800 pro video card, and loving it. And that my friends is what counts.
 
Originally posted by Roller
This basically means is that there'll be no time for resting on laurels in the ongoing chip war. The challenge for Apple and IBM will be to develop low-power chips to compete in the laptop space.
Click to expand...
I hope that they're not counting on this shift to do it - basically, everyone benefits the same amount from a move to smaller production sizes. The P-M (aka Centrino chip) is a kick-ass mobile chip <I>today</I>, definately the one to beat. Sure, a 65nm G5 would be fantastic. Just beating yesterday's intel won't impress anyone though, since they're going to be right there with the process, effectively nullifying the relative gain.

Its nice that intel and IBM have similar timeframes though - it somewhat validates the technology claims of both to be able to churn out the high-density high-transistor chips in the real world.

-Richard
 
Interesting how Intel and MS can only talk about what they're doing three years into the future now (but oh boy, its gonna be great!:rolleyes: )

The times they are a changin'
 
AMD Athlon-64/Opteron vs Itanium

Everyone likes to bash the Itanium chips but it actually is started to take off, and a great design. You don't see Apple carrying extra luggage from the 6502 or 680x0 processors in the PPC.

If you have ever programmed in x86 assembly you would know that it is complete hell because the x86 instruction set has been extended many, many times.

It has gone from the 4004 (4-bit), to the 8008 (8-bit), to the 8080, 8086/8088, 80186 (flop), 80268 (added memory production), 80386sx/dx (added 32-bits), 80486sx/sx2/dx/dx2/dx4 (added floating point internally), Pentium, Pentium MMX (added basic vector processing), Pentium Pro (Added support for more than 32-bit addresses), Pentium II, Pentium III (Added SSE), and Pentium 4 (Added SSE2, CPUID)....and lets not forget that in either the Pentium or Pentium Pro they added SMP support. And how about 3D Now, a failed instruction set from AMD.

The AMD is a horrific design. It once again adds extends the processor, adding more complexity to decoding and execution, and to assembly language design. No new registerers. The x86 has always suffered from a lack of registers. Modes have to be switched, which adds overhead.

The Itanium 2 fixes many problems from the original Itanium. It is even further reduced than RISC...its designed from the ground up as a modern processor....the compiler gets to define instructions in blocks, and specify how it works across multiple pipelines to correctly fill the processor to its max...instead of extra decoding at execution time. Its a simpler design, but leads to more complicated compilers, a problem that plagued the first processor.

The only part that the Itanium does not deal well with is legacy x86 code. But out of complete seriousness, if you are running 64-bit apps, there aren't many 32-bit apps you should be running at the sametime. The Itanium does very will in benchmarks.

Dell refused to work with the first Itanium, but are now seling a good number of the new Itanium 2s. While competition is good, the AMD 64 bit processors area really bad idea, from the ground up, they are based on a very outdated instruction set, one that has been extended around 10 times. It is time for the x86 architecture to be retired.
 
Originally posted by x86isslow
and what news from the riddermark..(too much Lotr).. i mean what news/rumors from Moto? will we EVER see a new Moto chip?
Click to expand...

didn't they spin off most of their processor division?
 
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