Essentially, the Smithfield core is no more than a pair of 90nm Prescott 1M dies bound together. Each core has its own 1MB L2 cache which may be accessed by the other either via a special bus interface. The result is a 206mm2 die comprising … [Read more...]

In October 1989, envisioning the future through the lens of Moore's Law, four Intel technologists authored an article entitled Microprocessors Circa 2000 which predicted that multi-core processors could come to market soon after the turn of the … [Read more...]

For a number of years years, CPU development had seen a shift towards delivering broader enhancements to the PC platform beyond the traditional clock speed metric. Indeed, just as there may be additional capabilities in the platform beyond … [Read more...]

In February 2004 Intel formally announced four new processors, built on the company's industry-leading, high-volume 90 nanometre manufacturing technology. Formerly codenamed Prescott, the new processors were clocked at between 2.8 and … [Read more...]

Virtually all contemporary operating systems divide their work load up into processes and threads that can be independently scheduled and dispatched to run on a processor. The same division of work load can be found in many high-performance … [Read more...]

For several months after the Pentium 4 began shipping in late 2000 the leadership in the battle to have the fastest processor on the market alternated between Intel and rival AMD, with no clear winner emerging. However, towards the end of … [Read more...]

In early 2000, Intel unveiled details of its first new IA-32 core since the Pentium Pro - introduced in 1995. Previously codenamed Willamette - after a river that runs through Oregon - it was announced a few months later that the new generation … [Read more...]