14 DAY TRIAL // This week's International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco brought more than we can carry in terms of chips and processors. Sun came with their 16-core CPU, Intel showcased the largest CPU ever, while IBM heated gamers' minds with the new PS3 Cell BE CPU.
Intel came with yet another worth-mentioning product, the brand-new Silverthorne processor that will power the next generation of handheld devices and ultra-mobile PCs. According to Intel's specifications sheet, the Silverthorne is a fully-fledged x86 compatible CPU that can handle all the tasks of a regular processor at just 600 milliwatts. Intel engineers boldly estimated that the Silverthorne will be able to reach a dazzling speed of 2GHz in a thermal envelope of only 2 watts.
Intel's miniature chip is built from scratch using the 45-nanometer process node that accounts for its increased performance while keeping power requirements low. "What has a lot of OEMs excited is the dynamic range of this processor. It can be active at less than 1 W, but when it has a workload in front of it--like interpreting some Java byte codes to render a Web page--it can really crank," claimed Justin Rattner, CTO of Intel.
Silverthorne's performs similarly to the older Intel Pentrium M chips that were aimed at the first Intel Centrino notebooks. The only difference between the above-mentioned processors is the power drain. According to Intel, the Silverthorne processor is powered in a modular manner. The processor receives power for each section of the chip, rather than a single phase to power the whole block. The multiple power management technologies allow the chip to witch in and out of a new C6 deep-sleep-state in less than 100 milliseconds.
Although it is highly-performing and energy-efficient, the Silverthorne seems not to be ready for the competition with the chips powering smartphones. The latter can not exceed the 600 milliwatts power range, but the Silverthorne can go beyond 2 full watts. The first batch of Silverthorne chips will be larger than the processors inside the smartphones, but will be able to run full versions of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system.
"Silverthorne probably won't appear in anything much smaller than a paperback book. But a follow-on design with lower power consumption in 2009 could very well appear in smart phones," claimed analyst Nathan Brookwood of Insight64.