P4 PRESCOTT 0,09 micron FSB 667 L2 1MB con tecnologia HyperThreading
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Intel Corp. executives are claiming that contrary to the general perception that the Prescott processor would be rolled out as another version of the P4, the company expects the device will be a full-blown P4 successor.
The chip is slated for introduction in the second half of 2003. At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), the company said Prescott will feature HyperThreading and an enhanced P4 NetBurst architecture, as well as a new integrated on-chip security technology called La Grande. To be manufactured on a 90nm technology process using 300mm wafers, the chip also is expected to usher in a 667MHz frontside bus.
In an interview with EBN, Intel president Paul Otellini said that, "Prescott will have so many advanced features that it is not just another Pentium 4 processor, but a new generation of its own," Otellini.
Louis Burns, vice president and co-general manager of the Intel Desktop Products Group, said Prescott is based on an enhanced NetBurst architecture, the 20-stage instruction pipeline that is the hallmark of the P4. Burns also indicated that the chip will scale up Intel's use of HyperThreading, a multiprocessing technique that allows a single processor to run concurrent instructions to boost performance.
According to one analyst, advances in the HyperThread architecture will enable Prescott to process even more instruction streams simultaneously, surpassing the performance of the 3.06GHz P4, Intel's fastest announced chip to date.
Bill Siu, vice president and co-general manager of the Desktop Platform group, said that since each new Intel processor generation has included higher-density on-die memory, it would be logical to expect Prescott to have a beefed-up L2 cache. Siu said Prescott will also use Intel's next-generation chipset, the Springdale. Intel has disclosed few of the chipset's details, although it is expected to be rolled out in the fourth quarter with support for DDR333 memory.
Sources with knowledge of Intel's roadmap believe the company will build the chipset on a 90nm process.
Addressing growing security concerns in the PC market, Intel last week also gave a glimpse of La Grande, an on-die technology that will interface with Microsoft's Palladium and other upcoming security software.
"We're going to take hardware security up a notch and work with future software developers" to implement the new system, Otellini said. "La Grande is not a Pentium 4 product. It will be a next-generation architecture."
While Prescott will succeed the P4 by adding new features and improving others, Intel and analysts agreed that the chip represents less a complete overhaul of the Pentium architecture than a substantially improved revision.
Greg Fawson, an analyst at InQuest Market Research, Gilbert, Ariz., said the new chip will follow in the footsteps of past upgrades, from the Pentium Pro to the Pentium II and Pentium III. Exactly how much of a departure the new chip entails will likely be revealed when the company assigns Prescott a brand name, according to other analysts.
