Intel’s IDF Will Focus on Turbo Boosted “Westmere” Chip

Intel’s 32-nanometer “Westmere” processor, the next step in the chip maker’s “Nehalem” architecture, looks to be a focus of the upcoming Intel Developers Forum next month.

In a blog post Aug. 19, Ken Kaplan, a member of Intel’s corporate communications team, noted that consumers and corporations will soon be seeing desktops and notebooks powered by the six-core processor.

“Westmeres will be the basis of upcoming all new Core chips (Core i3, i5, and 7) over the next few months,” Kaplan said in his post.

Intel is expected to start producing the processor in late 2009, with a rollout date coming in early 2010. Intel officials said in February that the Westmere design will also form the basis for some server devices.

IDF is scheduled to run from 22 to 24 Sept in San Francisco.

Westmere will feature 12MB of Level 3 cache, improved virtualisation capabilities and integrated graphics features.

The chips also will include features built into the “Nehalem” architecture, including Turbo Boost, which dynamically scales the processor power up or down depending on demand. In addition, some of the chips will feature HyperThreading capabilities, enabling each core to handle two instruction threads simultaneously, Kaplan said

In February, Intel officials announced plans to spend $7 billion over two years to upgrade manufacturing facilities in New Mexico, Arizona and Oregon.

Intel already has released 45-nm Nehalem processors for PCs and two-socket servers. The eight-core Nehalem EX, for four-socket systems, is due out later this year.