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RSS feedsIntel will today preview technologies for forthcoming processor and networking hardware, including better power management capabilities in the Montecito version of its Itanium chip, and improved radio technology for wireless laptops.
At this week's International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco, Intel will present details of power management and performance optimisation technology in Montecito, a dual-core Itanium server chip due later this year.
The firm will also detail a single-chip radio receiver that uses four antennae simultaneously to cut through interference and tune into the right signal.
Quad aerials allow Intel's chip to "steer" signals or sensitivity in a chosen direction. "It amplifies the signal that you want, and cancels out the signal you don't," said Krishnamurthy Soumyanath of Intel's communications technology lab. The technology will feature in laptops with wireless LAN in two to three years, he added.
New Demand-Based Switching (DBS) technology in the forthcoming Montecito is broadly similar to the SpeedStep power management technology used in laptops, according to Nimish Modi of Intel's enterprise microprocessor division.
Technology codenamed Foxton, meanwhile, optimises performance while keeping the chip within a 100W power budget. If Montecito is consuming less power while running an application, Foxton ratchets up the chip's frequency and voltage until 100W is reached. "This ensures you get the best performance for a given application," Modi said. Foxton will boost the kind of transaction-based applications for which Itanium-based servers are often used, according to the firm.
Intel said it will also detail its Pellston technology for Montecito, which is designed to improve reliability by disabling L3 cache lines that are failing.
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