Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker, is announcing more than 20 new products on Tuesday as it hammers home a miniaturisation advantage over Advanced Micro Devices, its microprocessor rival.
Intel will be the first to produce chips with circuitry just 45 billionths of a metre or nanometres wide, down from the 65nm standard that AMD is focusing on. The new chips offer cost savings and performance advantages.
The product announcements are being made at an Intel Developer Forum, held in San Francisco in the past but this year switched to Beijing.
The venue reflects how Intel is targeting China and other emerging markets for growth. Last month it announced it would build its first Asian chip fabrication plant in Dalian, north-east China, at a cost of $2.5bn.
Pat Gelsinger, head of Intel’s Digital Enterprise group, outlined performance and efficiency improvements that would be gained this year from a switch to 45nm chips code-named Penryn.
He said desktop PCs would be 25 per cent faster at 3D rendering and 40 per cent faster for gaming and video encoding.
Intel was also planning products based on an architecture code-named Project Larrabee which would enable “supercomputer-like teraflop performance”, he said.
Eric Kim, head of the Digital Home group, said Intel would introduce chipsets for home PCs this quarter which would include Intel Turbo Memory – flash memory that enabled computers to start up more quickly and speed the opening of applications.
Intel Media Share software would allow consumers to stream media files from their PCs to their laptops over a wireless home network. It would also offer “home manageability” features, where systems could be managed, repaired and updated remotely.
Mr Kim said Intel would deliver a system on a chip next year for a new generation of internet-compatible electronics devices, such as digital set-top boxes.
“This is a big show for us,” said Sean Maloney, Intel executive vice-president. “We were very happy to make the 45nm announcements and that our development efforts are mature enough for us to be able to announce so many products.”
Last week, AMD issued a warning that a price war with Intel would probably mean first-quarter revenues more than 20 per cent less than expected.
Intel will report its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
