Intel kicks off 45nm CPU production
On Thursday, Intel will begin production at its first 45-nm fab, based in Chandler, Ariz. Known as Fab 32, the $3 billion factory will be used to manufacture the company’s latest microprocessor line. The first 45-nm microprocessor, known as “Penryn,” will be launched on Nov. 12. Interestingly, Intel did not release production data for the new facility. The company also will not allow cameras inside the facility at a press event on Thursday morning, according to a company spokeswoman. What is known is that the facility contains 1 million square feet of space, of which 184,000 square feet is actually dedicated to the “clean room” manufacturing facility. More than 1,000 employees will work there, Intel said.
The 45nm manufacturing process is generally seen as the next big step in the semiconductor industry because it goes a long way toward addressing power leakage problems that plague larger technologies. A microprocessor built with 45nm process technology is smaller than its 65nm predecessor. Parts of the chip, like wires and transistors, get smaller, as well allowing it to work more efficiently because of the increased density. They’re also cheaper to produce because manufacturers can pack more chips onto a silicon wafer. Damn, Intel is getting some serious lead against AMD now…
Source: Computerworld
Comments(58)
45 or 42 nm? something in the title is wrong!!
Now that’s some great news. I do hope that AMD will manage to follow because we, us buyers, will benefit from it.
ouch, small number typo, fixed
Dude, you’re awesome!
Need to give you a positive feedback on ebay!
BTW: what’s up with the ads between comments page and the reloading?
Didn’t notice it before…
45nm and 65nm processors are great and all for those that want more battery life with their laptop or what not. But a lot of Intel processors can’t beat AMD’s 90nm design. With the added space AMD can have a much fast FSB (Front Side Bus) because of the integrated memory controller. The faster the FSB the faster the whole computer can talk to each other ie: memory, graphics, sound… With the quad cores coming into play now AMD is still beating Intel with the 1 core to 1 cache design. Intel’s Quad Core design is 2 Dual Core processors on one board. AMD is releasing a Tri and Quad design. So for every core the processor has that core will have is own cache unlike the Itel processors. So for now the processor war still continues… But I believe AMD will still win and stay ontop of the market.
do i hear a fan boy?????
hey firedog i do believe AMD is topping the market; but no company can beat Intel’s Technology, this is a huge leap man and AMD will have a very very long time to keep up with Intel in this field.
and BTW Does AMD own its own Silicon foundries like Intel or it does its chips in outside foundries ??
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AMD usually puts out a faster product due to their ability to increase fsb, but they run way too hot and their durability is always in question. For a more stable product stick with intel, or at least just take it as my opinion. I can’t wait for this product to hit the market. Just another reason to build an extra rig, and play with the new toys. I am curious if they are going to release a new series of mb’s as well. I am an asus fan, but been wanting to build a rig with an intel board for sometime.
45nm does not address the power leakage problem, in fact it increases it. Intel have addressed this by changing the materials they use to fab the chips.
Intel’s initial 45nm designs will not yield much better performance due to them basically being two dual-cores stuck together, it’s the second gen chips that will benefit from the move to 45nm.
If you go to any website with script turned on you deserve a trojan for being dumb.
I have the no script add on for firefox and i see NO ads at all.
abd re the Intel AMD battle. was anyone aware that Intel are going to drop the FSB method and start making chips like AMD, ie faster. Should be good.
I use Firefox + AdBlockPlus but I wanted to add rlslog.net to my exception list just to support them, but before I opened the site in IE7 to see what ads they have and when seeing that, I decided to keep this site blocked.
So, if you want more money out of ads, stop advertising crap.
Kimo, Intel does have great technology but they seem to rush a little more then they’ve used to. For the past few years they’ve pushed processor and other technology out a little too soon, and then 6 or so many months later they would come out with a “newer” technology. Like the Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo. They could have cut the whole Core Duo out and just gone with the Core 2 Duo. And as far as AMD owning it’s own silicon foundries. No, it doesn’t own it’s own foundry. AMD will be a new customer to… TSMC… The largest chip foundry in the world. That will take place in 2008 or so they say.
I really hope the war between AMD and Intel continues for a long long time. I really couldn’t care less about AMD or INTEL. They are both very large companies that each have 1 goal, to make as much money as possible. They are not in it for us normal folk having the best and fastest technology. If AMD didn’t exist we would still be on INTEL pentium 4’s now and thats a fact. The ONLY reason INTEL went crazy on pushing things forward was when AMD started making ground in the server market. Proper competition in the market place is what I love. Why do I love it??? Because it means that we the customers always get the best value for money! Long live the WAR!!!!
haha
(Probably the only time I can use the word war non politically)
I still have a cpu from 2001. It’s a 2.8 GHZ, which was pretty good at the time and still today, but it is getting phazed out for core 2 duo’s and quad cores. I cant really overclock it without a better watercooler. it usually stays around 120 degrees, if I O/C’d it it would probably hit 140, and that is where the problems begin.
I thought I had a 2.4c cpu, but I found the box again and it only a 2.4a with a 500 mhz frontside bus, with really sucks. I have a 800 mhz fbs cpu now, so that would actually be worse as gaming goes. I can probably overclock it alot but like I said before the FBS would slow me down.
45nm is a good deal and now that intel is 100% leadfree and I will have to switch now. The only problem is that there cpu’s at the moment are still expensive 500 bucks for a cpu is too much.
*yawn*
Yeah competition is nice, we all win, and the idiot who said it’s not about us is completely wrong as companies who are not driven by customers die quickly.
Fanboys are lots of fun for everyone.
cool, wots the tech specs for these 45nm?
@12
Your an idiot. We deserve it for not bothering with the crappy noscript addons?
You deserve a virus when you don’t have a firewall and anti-virus. Only then.
@CaptainHack, its other way around.. lol amd produces less heat and less speed than intel. intel is faster with more heat.. with more power usage.. stop feeding reading wrong info.
i was fan boy AMD for 5 years ..but now all my friends have nice dual core from Intel and is work ok in games photo and video procesing …
*yawn*
“45nm does not address the power leakage problem, in fact it increases it.”
This is correct, the article wrong. Decreasing line widths only increases the impact of issues like leakage and migration. If indeed the leakage issue has been sufficiently dealt with, it has been by changing materials, not decreasing line width.
That aside, isn’t AMD still fabless? Either way, AMD isn’t going to be matching this one for a good long while.
@25: No, AMD isn’t fabless. They own two Fabs in Dresden, Germany.
Fab 30: 90 nm process on 200 mm wafers (conversion to 65 nm, 300 mm planned)
Fab 36: 65 nm process on 300 mm wafers (conversion to 45 nm process planned for 2008)
Firedog you seem to quickly forget about the upcomming release of Penryn, Wolfdale and Yorkfield. AMD will have nothing to rival this for atleast 1 year after this line of 45m proscessors are released.
It worked the same way with duo core 2 and how it took amd almost a year to catch up and still amd processors cannot overclock in a stable fashion like the E6400 or E6600 can.
Sure AMD current quad core is more efficient architecture but performance is almost equil and once intel releases their next line of processors amd will only be viable for a bargin PC build once again.
AMD had a huge advantage with the Athlon vs Pentium 4 but since duo core 2 came out they have been playing catchup and will be for years.
I owned a 3700+ for my last computer but i choose a E6600 for my current build because it overclocks so well for the price. I have it running at 3100 mhz daily with low voltage and really good temps. There really is no chip amd currently has at that price range that can do these things.
some intel fanboys present, always stating the obvious… not that I dislike Intel, I have an AMD Processor and it’s one of the best processor’s I’ve ever used… I’ve also used an Intel processor and it was alright
AMD FOREVER!
I didn’t read the article. But I agree. With everything. gg
@ CaptainHack
Dude it has been well documented that Intel processors, espescially Prescott cores run much hotter than AMD. I still stick with Intel because I do alot of multitasking/video encoding etc, and Intel is clearly the leader if you want to do more than 2 things at once. ^^
The problem with opinions are that the above comments spend a great deal more time on assumptions to form their opinions rather than by providing the facts to back up their opinions.
If everyone was to just make stuff up, that is what religion is for, as there are no facts. If your religious, you just believe using faith…
For all the other types, when posting your comments and opinions, how about providing facts, where you got your facts, sources so we all can review and confirm, okay?
And for all the young Fanboism, nobody wants this propaganda.
Fanboy or Fanboi is a term used to describe an individual (usually male, though the feminine version fangirl may be used for females) who is utterly devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession. Fanboys remain loyal to their particular obsession, disregarding any factors that differ from their point of view. Fanboys are also stereotypically aggressive and hateful towards the opposing brand or competition of their obsession regardless of its merits or achievements.
AMD doesnt use FSB because the cores’ communication would slow down too much. thats why they used to be the best but now intel has faster chips. i think if they dropped the FSB, put 4 cores on one die, and got 45nm they would hav some of the fastest processors ever made.
For your information, homosexual incest never results in inbreeding.
So, if you must have relations with a relative, make it the same gender.
Where does Intel find the tiny Mexicans to work in such small factories?
I work in Intel, got a discount E6850 for €100, in your face losers! :p
@34
Wait… What?
I’ll stick with AMD as I have a AMD board and (derr.) it won’t work with Intel chips.
I don’t like Intel anyway, too pushy; I’ getting a 64 X2 Black Edition so’s I can overclock to 3.7 Ghz stable (I hope anyways; I know they go to 3.55 Ghz).
yea you can overlock them but intel uses 65nm so they can have 290 million transistors on a chip. also in every test intel beats AMD so why da hell would you even consider buyin from them.
@Armand
While that is technically true, it’s very hard to implement in real situations. Most siblings would object.
I love how people who cannot contribute to a real discussion bring up the ‘term’ fanboy because they know absolutely nothing about the subject matter.
I on the other hand find the discussion about Intel and AMD’s processes brief and to the point. Good points guys. I was wondering why I should skip current quad cores that are out there now.
The only issue I have is the 1333mhz speeds and if I should hold back because local retailers just don’t have many offerings to build a system on that bus. I think I just may stick with Intel because with my 3rd system being an AMD system I am not truly impressed. But that could be just me and video software pushing me towards Intel.
@ #38:
hum….because AMD is cheaper…you know, there are more people out there who would like to get a better Intel chip, but they can only aford AMD.
I work 8 hours with latest Intel, 8 hours with latest AMD (workplace, home). I can only say one thing: AMD bets the dust out of Intel, especially on databases where Intel should perform more stable and quicker. In contrary: AMD is better in each field. For me, starting from Duron 400, I always use AMD in home PC’s. Never regret.
lol jdizzle1337… sorry bu you’re simply a dumb fu|kin’ lyer!
AMD has the upper hand in cost vs performance in the mainstream sector. Only when it comes to overclocking Intel is better, but for a buyer that also means other high performance parts… so the buyer must be either someone that had in mind an upgrade for a long time and saved money or a rich kid. In this case the buyer would have to get also expensive cooling solutions that would make the Intel equal of AMD in price a much more expensive choice but at a better performance. If we just talk about regular buyers, that means: not kids that brag, then AMD is a better choice. Like someone above said… it’s rushed, the C2D platform is to young to be considered ready. Leave it a year or two for revisions to come out, after that you can get stable, bugles and quality product.
And yes! AMD was better than Intel! The K7 platform was a bit better than the PIII platform and after that the AMD64 was a lot better than the PIV That’s why PIV DIED! And also it lasted longar than the domination of PiV over the XP generation! If it would not have been so you would still play with your “P3 Extreme Pumped-up with B.S. Edition” and just dream at a C2D! Oh wait… the C2D platform is based on the PIII platform.
Get a life! Tom’s sh!t garden is just a pile of reviews meant to attract the uninformed user and making a chart between different platforms means and inexact result. Software wise different applications are optimized for the later platforms while leaving the older ones with wither legacy support! Hardware wise, it’s kinda lame to compare DDR to DDR2 or AGP to PCIe!… but hey! “we have the all time chart full of bs” attracts the average bragger that built 1000st of systems!
So Caren wants proof!
OK…
So lets take the first benchmark displayed by tom’s whateva grave yard: 3D Studio Max 9 – Rendering Dragon_Character_rig.
Lets also take close in performance processors:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe: 1:26
AMD X2 6000+ Windsor: 1.27
Now lets go to zipzoomfly and check some prices:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe: 224$
AMD X2 6000+ Windsor: 157$
… and the comp. can go on but I don’t have time.
You can google for reviews between them… it’s not hard!… just for proof!
With the difference between the E6600 and the 6000+ I could just buy some other component like a performance cooler, overclok the AMD and get better performance than the… or faster RAM and I would still get that extra second to beat the C2D!… for the same buck!
Overclock them both and yes, the Intel would beat the AMD but at a bigger price and that system wouldn’t do so well to what stability concerns! Besides, just the overclocking of a CPU doesn’t improve the overall performance of the system… if you do an overclock, you do it to all the overclockable components, if they can be overclocked… I doubt value components can!
If you have money and want something really fast… go buy the best parts nu just the best CPU!
So does this mean my microsoft word documents will look better and type faster?
On a related topic, I heard intel have a rejection rate of around 70% of all processors that come out of their factories. anyone else heard similar?
If true, just shows how much money can be made from processors!!
Back in early 20’s decade, we were given Intel P-IV 1.8 GHz at work and we were happy. The performance was OK enabling us to CounterStrike happily over our LAN – and there were more than 30 of us joining in and the FPS was great. Of course, those who upped their video cards made the most kills. At that time, those P-IVs cost an arm and a leg. At home meanwhile, I bought an Athlon XP 1700+ running at a “comparably rated” 1.4 GHz. Hey, I could also run CS and do some NFSU2. But then, the temp hurt the CPU much. It hung up a whole lot. I had to buy larger fans. Even that wouldn’t cut it. I had to buy and fix an external fan and ended up opening my case. I live in a tropical country and there’s no A/C at home. Sadly, the Intel at work happily throttled its CPU speed whenever temps got hot, but it never really went higher than 35 C even on full load, while maintained a 23 C on idle. But my AMD at home burned itself at 50 C idle and went beyond 60s C when doing something, even with so many extraneous fans already – this made me dissatisfied with AMD. Looking back, the price of Intel was out of reach for me, while the price of AMD was a sure bargain. It all boiled down to usability. I felt and still feel now that I had to do a lot of research on cooling whenever I use AMD.
Fast forward to the future. Presented with the opportunity to acquire a laptop, I opted for a Core 2 Duo Centrino running only 1.6 GHz. I played Terragen with it and all I can say is… wow. Recently, I upgraded my mother’s PC, I also opted for another Intel – a Pentium D 3 GHz and upped its video and memory. I can really see the performance benefits of having the real 2 core architecture. Impressive. Of course, the price of the Core 2 Duo was an arm and a leg, while the Pentium D is now at such a bargain (rejoices!). I decided not to continue my relationship with AMD at this time because as I read up everywhere I possibly can, they still have major temp problems even with the newer releases of Athlon XP64s. I live in a tropical country – with no A/C at home – so temps played out a lot in my decision-making process. I still enjoy reading about AMD’s cost-per-performance ratio advantage over Intel (that’s quite a popularly known opinion that can be actually taken as fact) but my usability conscience tells me I won’t be able to bite now until major temp issues have been fully resolved.
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the dropping prices of “obsoleted” Pentium IV’s – hey, for my purposes, they do work nicely. It’s just a matter of keeping my OS to its optimum configuration.
@ caren
Maybe you’d like to enlighten us with a bunch of figures and flow-charts? Before you go calling people fanboy, I suggest you reasearch the facts yourself. As I said before, its been well documented that Intel, espescially Prescott cores run much hotter than comparable AMD’s and are also hotter than the previous Northwood core. Google it. Checkout Tomshardware.com, overclockers.net etc
LOL #44 fanboy much?
You actually prove my point by saying that yes the Windsor is cheaper and slower but you can spend EXTRA money to make it faster. LOL nice thread of logic there……. NOT. What are you going to do when i overclock my Core 2 Duo with the stock cooler? LOL you are back at square 1, because now my processor is still faster and after you purchase your $50 cooling fan the price for both CPUs will be similar.
Might wanna think about your examples before you give them. Core 2 Duo is better than anything that AMD offers, albeit slightly more expensive, but easier to overclock and more stable. With the Q6600 Kentsfield chip being ~$280 i just giggle at AMD’s meager offerings.
As for Tom’s Hardware, LOL CALM DOWN. I simply linked to the performance charts which are real world scientific benchmarks. I did not link anyone to any pro-Intel articles, or anything like that so calm it down. I just invited people to look at some hard evidence and come to their own conclusions.
@Bisaya, I can say the exact opposite… sorry but living in a tropical country means temps during day get way past 35*C… and a CPU running at the same temps as the ambient for 8h a day, a work day, seems unlikely. I know ppl that had problems with other components… especially the coolers for the Northbridge of intel boards… when nForce/VIA nb ran just fine with a simple heatsink. Also when I checked their temps, they were like 48 to 50 *C on 2.5 to 3.0 GHz PIV. I also noticed that while mobile AMD’s are hotter, most of those laptops also come with ATI graphics cards which add to the heat and reduces the airflow of the CPU outtake… resulting in less heat being ejected. True, that these run hotter, but it depends what you have on them… most Intel notebooks have a mere IGA onboard.
@jdizzle1337… dude, I’ll stop saying something against you cause I see you have a mental problem.
No, it’s not EXTRA money… if you buy a Windsor you save some money and with that you can buy EXTRA or better hw. My logic is just fine… yours is kinds awkward.
Try to oc… I’ll just laugh at you with your burned-out c2d in your hand. It’s a value comparison… just a few ppl out of the entire consumer market knows how to oc a CPU and even if more of them knew, they probably wouldn’t cause of the warranty implications.
As for Tom’s whateva garden… that’s not hard evidence.Just a pile of BS.
@ Emm
you seem to be misinformed about overclocking a c2d because they need very little voltage increase to overclock 30 or 40% so you can do a decent overclock on the stock cooler which is actually quite large. although if you wanted to go to 4000 mhz you would need liquid cooling but they are actually stable at that for daily use.
LOL yeah there you go Emm the Tom’s Hardware benchmarks aren’t hard evidence? “just a pile of BS”? what benchmarks do you have that show AMD out performs Intel in real world programs? And i am the one with the mental problem ? Nice fanboy attack.
does it really matter because intel still have the 80 core cpu coming out with just two years from now. deal with it people its called technology so use it.
Most of you all type like a fourth grader. Learn to use punctuation marks, commas and so on and so on. I dont understand the sentences or actually called run on sentences you guys write. It takes me a good minute to understand what was written down. Peace!… from AMD fanboy FiTO
zipzoomfly must have some bogus prices because i just picked up a Conroe E6750 at fry’s the other day for $200. I have been an AMD fan for many many years, the first computer i ever built for myself from scratch was a K6-III, 350MHz i think. anyways I hate to admit it but Intel has been beating the pants off AMD for some time now. Core2Duo is great for it’s lowered power consumption and heat, and the 4/8MB L2 cache helps too. On top of that, LGA775 has been the definition of “standardized” for how many years? Sure the A64×2’s have integrated memory controllers, but with ddr2-1066, and now ddr3-800/1066/and 1333! emerging on the scene… well you get the idea. AMD’s Dual Socket F 4×4 “quad-core” FLOP didn’t help the situation much either. But it appears AMD has and will for some time OWN the FPU section. I truly hope Phenom (AMD’s “true” quad-core) is gonna be as good as it’s hyped to be, because everyone loves to cheer for the underdog and i’m still an AMD fan at heart, but at the moment Intel reigns supreme. OH! I almost forgot… AMD did NOT get rid of the FSB, they simply changed it somewhat and dubbed it “HyperTransport”, at 1000/2000MHz it is a great improvement, but Intel is catching up with the 1333 FSB.
intel ftw deffinately… wonder when they will buy nvidia lol
Not misinformed, it’s that cpu’s differ from piece to piece… I’ve seen a few that burned out, so I have my doubts.
jdizzle1337, just google… you’ll find a lot of tests where the differences are obvious! The fact of the matter is, they wanted to get their a55es lic|ked more so they invented this chart.
b_nutz, there’ll always be some place where you can find lower prices… I’m not surprised! And yes, AMD did get rid of the FSB, again google, no need to waste time.
YEAH THEY INVENTED THE CHART MAN -_- ….THATS A GOOD ONE EMM!
MAYBE THEY JUST INVENTED ALL THE CHARTS WE SEE SAYING INTEL BEATS AMD IN ALL REAL-WORLD TESTS…..HELL MAYBE ALL THIS DRIBBLE IS INVENTED…..GEEZ MAN GET REAL.
Give it a rest already, fuc|kin ‘tard!
I said what I had to say about tom’s junk yard!
Anything else that you want to rant about, loser!?