Get acquainted, Penryn

Evgenie Rudometov

www.rudometov.com

Having mastered 45 nanometers a procedure, Intel company has declared mass release of the new bar of processors

In December, 2007 60 years since time of the invention of the transistor – the semiconducting construction which step-by-step superseded radio tubes and have opened an era of semiconductors were executed. Names of creators of this remarkable instrument, received after a while for the invention the Nobel Prize: William Shokli, John Bardin and Uolter Brattejn (Bell Labs). They have created the first semiconducting intensifying instrument which has received the name "transistor". It has been officially presented in December, 1947, and the subsequent years has gained grandiose distribution and became element base of information technologies, the beginning which is considered to be since time of the invention of the processor.

For the sake of justice, it is necessary to mark, that electronic computers have appeared before the transistor invention, and the more so processor. Nevertheless, mass computers became from the processor invention

Well-known history of appearance of the microprocessor 4004: its name accepted for marketing reasons, mirrors 4-rjazrjadnuju the architecture. Then, in 1971, the processor at all did not become a hit of sales, and even in 1975 section of the directory of products of Intels devoted to microcomputers, opened a two-page explanation under header "What for microcomputers are necessary?

Today such question does not arise any more thanks to a rapid progress in solid-state technologies and to appearance of more and more perfect units the processors became which top, allowing to realise more and more courageous plans of designers.

As a result of implantation of a new procedure transistors decrease in the sizes that allows to increase their number on semiconducting crystals. Today the sizes of transistors are calculated in nanometrah. It allows to create more and more difficult circuits functioning on more and more high frequencies.

As a result productivity and functionality of computers promptly grows. And they, as is known, substantially depending on the internal arrangement of the circuits realised on semiconducting crystals of processors.

Microarchitecture NetBurst which has come in 2000 on changeover to microarchitecture P6 (last representatives P6 – 0,18 microns Coppermine, and final 0,13 nanometers Tualatin in 2001) already became history. It has been at various times presented by a number different dizajnov kernels: Willamette (2000, 0,18 microns, 0,13 microns), Northwood (2002, 0,13 microns), Prescott/Smithfield (2004, 90 nanometers) and Cedar Mill/Presler (2006, 65 nanometers) – four generations of design of a kernel and six years on one microarchitecture!

Today designers of Intel adhere to the new strategy. According to new schedules of Intel change of microarchitecture and transition on new tehprotsess is provided each two years. Today it is difficult to tell, whether it will be possible to the leader of the processor industry to hold so high rates of development during the durable period. In Intel such strategy of output names “tick-tock” ("tic-so"). Each "tic" mirrors a new stage of development poluprovodniktehnovyh industrial processing techniques and refinement in the field of microarchitecture of processor kernels. Everyone "so" corresponds to creation of new microarchitecture.

As the important example of implementation of the given approach, it is possible to consider development of processors with kernel Penryn, 45 nanometers created on processing technique and embodied the successful architecture of Intel Core is multiple checked up in two and chetyrehjadernyh models of processors of Intel Core 2 Duo and Intel Core 2 Quad.

About the advanced design representatives of Intel have opened a number of some details in December, 2007 on the action which has transited in Moscow under the slogan «Mission 45».

The regional director of corporation of Intel in the CIS countries Dmitry Konash has opened action.

Fig. 1. Dmitry Konash, the regional director of corporation of Intel in the CIS countries

In the performance the head of Intel has told, that processors for desktop PCs of a new generation with working name Penryn will be constructed on the basis of advanced microarchitecture of Intel Core. Transition to 45-nanometer tehprotsess becomes their main difference and some architectural innovations owing to what will raise energoeffektivnost, the frequency potential will extend, the quantity of executable commands for clock tick and other will increase.

45 set nanometer of chips Penryn becomes a basis for new Core 2-nuclear chips Wolfdale and 4-nuclear chips Yorkfield going on changeover of today's 65 nanometers to processors Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad accordingly. Accordingly, Penryn set processors will lay down in a basis of a new generation of a transportable platform of Intel Centrino with code name Montevina. New transportable platform Montevina which is expected in the first half of the year 2008, will substitute itself version Santa Rosa.

Refinements which will be brought by transition on new tehprotsess. It is necessary to mark, that chetyrehjadernye processors Penryn will include about 820 million transistors which will be allocated on two chips by square 107 мм². For matching, modern chetyrehjadernye processors of Intel Kentsfield have 582 million transistors, thus squares of chips chetyrehjadernyh the processors released on 65-nanometer to norms, make 143 мм².

Here saving of the law of Moore according to which still with periodicity about time in two years the quantity of transistors doubles is viewed, the specific price of manufacture of one transistor decreases, productivity increases,

Fig. 2. Moore's law

In new processors of 45 nanometers tehprotsessa use high-k dielectric materials, metal locks and other innovations. Process has been tested by the little more than a year ago and shown on slices with memory SRAM. By the way, it became already tradition.

Fig. 3. Change of density of chips

Transition to new, more precision norms tehprotsessa attracts behind itself necessity of solution of questions of reduction of currents of leakage flow of transistors, that directly influences on energopotreblenie and a chip heat release as a whole. Lowering of a thickness of this layer leads to appearance of effect of direct tunneling elektronov through insulating layers. It carries on to sharp increase in a leakage current through a gate dielectric substance. For solution of the given problem silicon dioxide has been substituted on a lamina of a substance on the basis of salts of a rare-earth metal of hafnium with a high metric of a dielectric coefficient.

New 45 nanometers tehprotsess Intel means the smaller sizes of transistors at much tighter allocation of these transistors on a slice – approximately twice tighter, than in case of the previous 65 nanometers of generation. The decreased sizes of transistors have led to reduction approximately on 30 % of the current which is required for their switching, thus more than on 20 % the switching speed of transistors, more has grown than a leakage current has five times decreased

In processors of Penryn set Intel company has decided to increase cache memory size. So, dvuhjadernye processors will be equipped with cache memory L2 in size to 6 MB, and separate chetyrehjadernye models will get a 12-MB the cache memory.

For increase in productivity of new processors in them support of new instruction set SSE4 will be realised. By word representatives of Intel, SSE4 – the most scale and considerable extension of the architecture of Intel ISA since time of appearance SSE2. Instruction set SSE4 contains some primitives of vectorization for the compilers providing further increase of productivity and efficiency of multimedia applications.

Certainly, there are also other innovations, but about it next time.

Fig. 4. Evolution tehprotsessov

Also something has been told about farther schedules of the company. The production plan of refinement of lithographic processes of Intel henceforth is not ended 32-nanometer by norms. Tehprotsess, having code name P1270 will be under the schedule, that is in two years after 32нм. So the decline of a semiconducting era is once again postponed, and on all the interesting future waits truly.