Intel CEO Paul Otellini used the April 14 Q1 2009 earnings conference call to reveal that the 32nm Westmere family of Intel processors is already in the hands of OEMs for testing.
Westmere is considered the culmination of a broader initiative that will invest $7 billion over two years to create additional 32nm plants in the United States. The investment will focus on improving or converting existing 45nm sites in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. Intel states that their investment will help create more than 7,000 high tech/high-wage jobs in the United States alone.
New processors based on the 32nm technique are the smallest produced to date, and were slated for year’s end. Collectively known as the Westmere family of processors, parts based on the design will include the Gulftown (enthusiast desktop), Lynnfield (mainstream desktop), Clarkdale (value desktop), Clarksfield (enthusiast mobile) Arrandale (value mobile), and Beckton (server).
Given Intel’s considerable lead on 32nm fabrication over rival firm AMD, there has been mounting speculation that Intel would push the Westmere launch back to 1Q10 to give existing Nehalem parts more time as firm’s flagship in the channel. However, the revelation that Intel is already sampling Westmere parts to OEMs confirms a 2009 launch and proves the process is as healthy as claimed.
“Our 32-nanometer process is very healthy and shows great promise for us,” Otellini said. “This is the reason we recently announced a $7.0 billion investment in plants and equipment to accelerate high volume deployment of this technology.”
“We have pulled in Westmere, our fist 32-nanometer product family, and will now be shipping those products later this year. We have shipped thousands of Westmere samples to over 30 OEM customers already. We also look forward to the launch of our new consumer ultra low voltage products which will enable many new thing and light notebooks at very compelling price points.”
The announcement also puts the reality of Westmere’s development in lockstep with a February roadmap that plotted the course of Intel’s mobile, mainstream and enthusiast segments.
Slide courtesy of Intel, Feb. 2009
Intel’s announcement of OEM sampling predictably coincided with the chip’s appearance on XtremeSystems. XS member JCornell has taken a Clarkdale — a dual-core 32nm CPU with an on-die 45nm Intel GMA GPU — to task in SuperPi. The 2.4GHz chip turned in a respectable SuperPi score of 18 and change, which places it about 10% ahead of an equally clocked Intel Core 2 Duo P8600.
Update @ 2:08 PM EST, 4/16/09: We originally listed the Clarksfield as the 32nm part for servers. This has since been corrected to accurately report Beckton as the Westmere part for servers.
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