Intel launching Tukwila: world's first 2 billion transistor chip

We first heard of Intel's quad-core Tukwila back in 2006. Now, it's launching at the International Solid State Circuits Conference. Expected to arrive in the second half of the year, the 2GHz Itanium processor packs in more than 2 billion transistors. Unfortunately, it's headed straight to the raised-floor room, not your consumer-class desktop. The good news for IT types is that the proc doubles the performance of Intel's enterprise-class, 9100-series Montvale processors with just a 25% increase in power consumption. So, we looking at 4 billion transistors by 2010 Mr. Moore? Probably, Tukwila is still using 65-nm processes as opposed to Intel's new 45-nm technology.

[Via ZDNet Australia]

[Ben @ Feb 4th 2008 5:59AM]

For British eyes only!

[Brian @ Feb 4th 2008 6:05AM]

Why are they still using the 65nm process on new chips? Pure speculation: These chips will be low yield and 65nm production equipment is being phased out... so it will be more available for these chips?

[Chuck @ Feb 4th 2008 6:24AM]

"We first head of Intel's quad-core Tukwila back in 2006."... head of? Somebody up late watching the Super Bowl?

[Matthew.T.Noel @ Feb 4th 2008 6:24AM]

Why are they naming it after a ghetto city in WA?

[Yvo @ Feb 4th 2008 11:00AM]

Seriously :-). Everything about Tukwila sucks, even the mall.

[aaron @ Feb 4th 2008 11:33AM]

My office is in Tukwila. It's not THAT bad.

[Brian @ Feb 4th 2008 11:53AM]

If you think Tukwila's ghetto, come to Sequim.

[Dale @ Feb 4th 2008 1:56PM]

Sequim eh, sounds like fun.
From urbandictionary.com
Quim

Female genitalia.

"She had a really nicely trimmed quim"

[Reid @ Feb 4th 2008 2:21PM]

At least Sequim has quaint charm. Tukwila just sucks.

[KJ @ Feb 5th 2008 6:35AM]

Bring on 2010!

[Inquiringminds Wannaknow @ Feb 4th 2008 8:11AM]

Is the black gridwork area in the image unused space or something "regular" like memory?

If unused, yow!

[Kamokazi @ Feb 4th 2008 8:32AM]

Not a Computer Engineer here, but I am pretty sure that is the cache memory. (L2 the larget area, L1 one of the smaller areas).

Now if we could get some true quad-cores based on the Conroe/Penryn platform (or a new architecture) for desktop PCs. (Current Intel quad cores are just 2 dual cores mashed together).

[applepye @ Feb 4th 2008 12:48PM]

All of the space is definitely used. The big black areas to the right and left should be the L3 cache. The smaller black areas in the middle at the top and bottom of the chip are the L2 and each processing core each has it's own little L1 cache somewhere in there.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Feb 4th 2008 8:52AM]

Rumored to be the the chip of choice in the soon-to-be-updated MacBook Pro.

[Ayle @ Feb 4th 2008 9:00AM]

Itanium are server-class cpu. The cpu in the mbp santa rosa refresh will be the penryn.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Feb 4th 2008 5:19PM]

I know. I was joking. They'd mentioned it would never touch the desktop. You couldn't get a battery big enough to put that chip in a notebook computer and expect decent battery life. I'll be looking for the Penryn, of course.

[Ayle @ Feb 4th 2008 8:56AM]

This is art.

[Traveler @ Feb 4th 2008 4:36PM]

2010? that's too long. And there are couple of years follow it to drop to an affordable price.
AMD have to make up something within the next few years.

[z3razerviper @ Feb 4th 2008 9:44AM]

I have an itanium server and it is quite franly the most useless peice of hardware we own. Unless you are running HPUX they are a pain to deal with and dont run legacy apps well at all.

[Joe @ Feb 4th 2008 12:24PM]

No matter what the name, it is absolutely astounding that 2 billion of anything fits on a wafer this size. Incredible and more to come.

[msimonson @ Feb 4th 2008 1:24PM]

I just hope they name the next one Puyallup. Or maybe Chehalis... So hard to decide.

[Valgas @ Feb 4th 2008 12:41PM]

Look at this thing. Look at how complex it is and think about the things it can do. The people who design this stuff are beyond super genius. Sometimes I wish my brain was the size of a European or Asian brain so I could harness maximum thinking power and invent super chips such as this!!!!!

[john_v_phipps @ Feb 4th 2008 2:42PM]

I vote for humptulips.

[JP23 @ Feb 4th 2008 3:26PM]

It's not named after a Ghetto, it's named after Len Tukwilla and it's made of driftwood.

[GhostDoggy @ Feb 5th 2008 5:06AM]

And the probability of one of them ceasing to play nice makes it all that important to hope things stay nice and cheap.