14 DAY TRIAL // After it publicly criticized the role of ultra-low power processor architectures in the server market, it seems like Intel had a change of heart as the company has now announced its plans regarding the launch of an Atom-based micro-server CPU in 2012.
Intel says that, by building an Atom-based server CPU, it will be able to address the requirements of users who demand higher density server machines, a market that is estimated to account for about 10% of its total shipments over the next 4 to 5 years.
Right now, not so many details are available regarding the architecture used by these CPUs, but, as Intel in 2008 said that the current Bonnell core that is used for Atom processors will live for about five years, it's expected that the processors will be based on an in-order CPU design.
While this won't definitely deliver high performance numbers, the new Atom processors will get some server-oriented enhancements such as error-correcting code and virtualization support.
As far as the chip's power consumption is concerned, this will stay under the 10W mark.
Together with this Atom-based series of processors, Intel announced that it would introduce two new low-power Xeon models.
These are called the E3-1220L and the E3-1260L and have a TDP of 20W and 45W, respectively.
Of the two, only the E3-1260L will pack four processing cores, clocked at 2.40GHz, while the E3-1220L features a dual-core design and its operating frequency is set at 2.20GHz (3.40GHz max in Turbo Boost mode).
The chips are destined to be used in the micro-server market, and are supposed to launch sometime this year.
To bridge the space left between these Xeon processors and the 2012 Atom cores, Intel plans to introduce a 15W Sandy Bridge-based processors in H2 2011, but, sadly, details about the chip are scarce at this moment.