- Home ›
- Technology and Research ›
- Intel Technology Journal ›
- Original 45nm Intel® Core™ Microarchitecture
Original 45nm Intel® Core™ Microarchitecture
Foreword
Ofri Wechsler, Intel Fellow, Manager, MG CPU Architecture
A few years ago Intel Corporation decided to base our entire IA microprocessor product line on the Intel® Core™ microarchitecture. The essence of the decision was to utilize the Intel Core technology that was originally designed for mobile computing and to enhance Intel Core in ways that would allow it to span both the desktop and server markets. In conjunction with the converged core decision, we have also outlined a new development model for Intel® IA microprocessors which we named the “Tick-Tock” model.
Improvements in compaction (Tick) would be followed with improvements in the microarchitecture (Tock). The fundamental objective of the Tick-Tock model was to allow Intel to take advantage of the converged core in its processor development and to synchronize and maximize the utilization and output of our development teams. Our thought was that this model will enable Intel to produce significant, predictable microprocessor improvements year after year.
The new Intel® Core™ processors (code-named Penryn) represent the first Tick for the Tick-Tock model. Based on historical track records, one might have expected Penryn processor improvements to be primarily caused by the shift to our new 45nm process technology (the “Tick”). That is, this first implementation would be a process technology lead vehicle with only moderate improvements attributed to changes other than process technology.
Surprisingly, this is far from being the case. The Penryn development team internalized the Tick-Tock strategy and was able to deliver an enormous number of improvements above and beyond a traditional “compaction” project. The Penryn processor development teams have set a very high bar for future Intel Tick processors.
The new Penryn processor family is marching in the footsteps of its predecessor, codename Merom, and continuing to improve the computation efficiency. The novel new hardware divider and super-shuffle units, the SSE4.1 instruction set, as well as many more microarchitectural enhancements of the Penryn processor are all aimed at the same goal: deliver more and more performance to the end user within the same or even lower power envelopes.
In addition to the performance and performance efficiency improvements that the Penryn processor family provides, it is also demonstrating a revolution in power and thermal management. Penryn processors introduce the novel Deep Power Down state, which allows the processor to draw minimal current when the processor is idling. The technological foundation that was put in the Penryn processor will allow future Intel processors to eliminate the idle power component completely from the energy equation as we move into more advanced power delivery schemes. And finally, with Penryn processors, we are introducing Intel® Dynamic Acceleration Technology that allows power and thermal budgets to move dynamically within the dual- and quad-core complexes and to boost single-thread performance even further in a restricted power envelope.
I am very proud of the newest and youngest member of the Intel Core microarchitecture family. The Penryn processor implementation teams have demonstrated for the first time what a Tick processor should look like and have expanded Intel's unquestioned leadership across the mobile, desktop and server market segments.