January 30th, 2007
AMD versus Intel: CPU wars roadmap
Intel strikes back
As we approach the end of this year, Intel will make a huge leap to the High-K metal gate 45 nm "Penryn" processor. The hafnium-based dielectric and mystery metal electrode allows Intel to drastically reduce gate power leakage. This translates to lower power consumption at the same frequency or same power consumption at higher frequencies. The estimated clock speed boost could be 20% or more depending on how Intel executes its transition to 45 nm. Penryn will also include a 50% boost in L2 cache and roughly 50 more instructions in SSE4 for high performance computing and media applications. Intel will also continue to use a dual-die process for quad-core Penryn chips because it doesn't really negatively impact power consumption or performance but it does improve their yield because of the ability to pair off good dies. Penryn if executed properly will likely mean that Intel will retake the lead in servers again and open up a wider gap in Desktops which could spell trouble for AMD. It could also open up another round of price wars where Intel can better afford to cut prices with a 45 nm process while AMD gets squeezed hard financially with their 65 nm process.
AMD of course is well aware of this which is why they're so aggressively targeting mid-2008 for their own 45 nm process launch. IBM, Toshiba, Sony, and AMD are all co-developing a 45 nm process. IBM indicated over the weekend that they're also planning to incorporate High-K dielectrics as if to say "me too and we're not too far behind" after Intel's big Friday night High-K announcement so it's reasonable to assume that AMD will also be using High-K in their 45 nm process as well. I asked David Kanter what he thought of AMD's aggressive mid-2008 time frame and here's what he had to say:
David Kanter: Mid-2008 is a very aggressive target for AMD, since they will be shifting to immersion lithography. It would be a real victory for AMD, but a bit of healthy skepticism is due. The other thing is, that it's possible they hit mid-08 but in really really low volumes.
Kanter also added that immersion lithography is a brand new chip fabrication process that no one has ever done before and AMD has had major delay issues in the past. Intel on the other hand is deciding to stick with existing dry lithography techniques and won't attempt immersion lithography until they go to their 32 nm process. The fact that they were already showing off 45 nm prototypes last Friday would seem to indicate they made the right decision.
If getting to 45 nm wasn't a big enough challenge for AMD, Intel isn't in to mood to let AMD catch up. Intel will release a whole new microarchitecture called Nehalem some time in the second half of 2008 which will likely be around the same time as AMD hitting 45 nm. Nehalem will be Intel's second generation of 45 nm chips and it will not only feature a brand new microarchitecture, it will also replace Intel's aging FSB (Front Side Bus) technology with CSI (Common System Interface) which will compete with AMD's HyperTransport architecture. While Nehalem will be a brand new microarchitecture, AMD's first 45 nm part will be a refresh of the Barcelona architecture. At this point there isn't enough information to speculate on performance in Q4 2008 but the fact that Intel is leaping so quickly after Penryn has to be giving AMD some headaches.
George Ou is Technical Director of ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
