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Intel to start printing new 45-nanometer Xeons

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit

All of Intel's 45-nanometer Penryn chips will be in production during the fourth quarter of this year, as the company has accelerated the introduction of its server chips based on that design.

Intel's Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel's server platforms group, announced the move earlier this week. Last month, CEO Paul Otellini told reporters that systems would be available by the end of the year with the desktop and notebook versions of the Penryn design, Intel's first 45-nanometer chip. But the company also now plans to start making server chips in the fourth quarter as well, although it doesn't sound like servers with the chips will be available until 2008.

The smaller processors should deliver a performance boost over Intel's current server processors, built on 65-nanometer manufacturing technology. Advanced Micro Devices isn't scheduled to introduce 45-nanometer processors until 2008.

Skaugen also announced plans for a 3GHz version of Clovertown, its quad-core Xeon server processor that currently tops out at 2.66GHz. As previously reported, a is also scheduled to arrive very soon, he confirmed.