Intel unveils 22nm and Nehalem's replacement

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Intel today showed off a silicon wafer of 22nm chips and and its next micro architecture, Sandy Bridge.

Chief executive Paul Otellini held up the wafer during his keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco.

He said it was being tested and would be ready for the second half of 2011, keeping with Intel’s production “cadence” - the tick/tock schedule for new processes.

“At Intel, Moore’s law is alive and well,” he said.

The 22nm process is already creating test circuits with both logic circuits and SRAM. The test chips use the smallest SRAM cell in working circuits ever, coming in at just 0.092 microns, according to Intel Senior Fellow Mark Bohr.

Westmere on the way

Otellini also confirmed that the 32nm process is in production. Codenamed Westmere, it will be released to manufacturers in the fourth quarter of this year. He said: “32nm is here now.”

On stage during the keynote, Intel demonstrated Arrandale, a CPU from the 32nm process. Arrandale is due out by the end of the year.

Sandy Bridge up and running

Intel also demonstrated Windows 7 running on Sandy Bridge, showing the Nehalem replacement was “already up and running.”

Sandy Bridge is the next micro architecture from the 32nm process, and will feature a graphics core on the same die as the processor.

Click here for more news from Intel Developers Forum 2009.

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