[IDF2009] Perlmutter/James keynotes

The keynotes of the Intel Dveveloper Forum 2009's second day were provided by Dadi Perlmutter, general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, and Renee James, general managers of the Software and Services Group. They revealed details on Intel's plans regarding mobility and software.

Dadi Perlmutter's keynote featured the official introduction of mobility Core i7 processors. The 32 nm dual-core Arrandale processor with integrated graphics card was also announced again. By the end of next year, a new generation of processors is to be released. The new chips, branded Sandy Bridge, will have the graphics card integrated into the same chip as the processor.

Alienware notebook with Core i7 mobile processor.

Perlmutter also showed a concept notebook with three small OLED-screens. These screens allow email, Twitter-updates, calendar or media players to be displayed, while the primary screen can be used for fullscreen applications.

An Intel design concept: a laptop with three extra OLED-screens

Intel announces that more manufacturers are integrating anti-theft technology in their notebooks. Intel's Anti-Theft technology encrypts all data on the hard disk and makes it possible to disable a notebook when stolen.

The new generation of Atom processors (Moorestown) will be even more efficient, thanks to power gating. In idle, the chip practically uses 0 Watt, while the consumption during video playback is 5x lower than the current Atom chips. The 45 nm Moorestown allows Atom motherboards to be created as large as a credit card. The next generation (Medfield, 32 nm) will make it possible to create motherboards the size of half a credit card.

Intel has also introduced a new technology to transfer 10 Gigabit/s of data by means of an optical cable, over a maximum distance of 100 meters. This new connection would be suitable for image, network and storage. Sony has already announced that it will use this Light Peak technology. The connector is equal to that of USB, only then with an optical connection in the back. Are we looking at USB 4.0?

A test setup for Intel's 10 Gigabit/s Light Peak connection.

Renee James drew the attention to Intel's developer tools. The Parallel Amplifier software allows programmers to design their software for multi-threaded processors more easily. The purchase of Wind River provided Intel with programming environments for embedded applications as well. A new thing is the Intel Media Software Development Kit, which makes it easier to use all new Intel instructions in multi-media applications, such as video-conversion software. A pre-release version of the SDK was used by Cyberlink to optimize the MediaShow Espresso software for Core i7. This SDK is also compatible with the Larrabee generation. This means that developers are already capable of developing software for the Larrabee, making it possible to launch applications simultaneously with the launch of the new chips.

Renee James confirms that Larrabee is DirectX, OpenGL and OpenCL compatible. Two demonstrations of 3D-effects have been shown. Thanks to the ability to adress Larrabee directly, they are far simpler to implement than by using DirectX.

Dell has announced that it will start selling netbooks featuring Intel's Moblin Linux distribution, as a Windows alternative.

Tags: atom corei7 opencl gpgpu larrabee netbook linux oled usb directx 32nm 45nm

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