Intel discussed upcoming leading edge microprocessors and technologies. Intel’s 45nm high-k metal gate leading manufacturing technology is enabling the industry to move to multicore processors in all market segments, and Intel discussed future products with four, six, eight and many computing cores coming to the market.

Pat Gelsinger, Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager, Digital Enterprise Group disclosed details around Intel’s multi-processor (MP) servers based on Intel’s 6-core processor codenamed “Dunnington” and Intel’s new Itanium processor codenamed “Tukwila.” Gelsinger discussed current hot enterprise topics, including virtualization and the new SPEC power benchmark for measuring server energy efficiency, in which Intel-based systems hold all of the top 20 spots. He disclosed a number of technical features on two important products for Intel, Nehalem, Intel’s next generation processor family and Larrabee, a future Intel product with many cores.

Intel’s current 7300 chipset based platform combined with the Quad-Core Xeon 7300 processor is the industry’s virtualization platform of choice for MP servers. Dunnington is socket-compatible with the Caneland platform and will be available in the second half of 2008. Dunnington is the first IA (Intel Architecture) processor with 6-cores, is based on the 45nm high-k process technology, and has large shared caches.

Another supported feature is FlexMigration technology, which allows a single compatible virtualization pool that supports live VM (Virtual Machine) migration across both 65nm and 45nm high-k Intel Core microarchitecture-based servers and 45nm-based servers. This provides investment protection as well as the option to choose the right server platform to best optimize performance, cost, power and reliability.