Intel Hopes to Catch A.M.D. with New Chip Design
Intel gave the first public demonstration on Tuesday of a new generation of computer processors that significantly increase performance without consuming more power.
The company’s chief executive, Paul S. Otellini, told developers at its semiannual technology conference that Intel expected to finish the new family of chips in the second half of 2008, in keeping with its promise of a new chip architecture every other year. The new family of chips, code-named Nehalem, will use as many as eight processing cores and will offer better graphics and memory-control processing.
Intel had been late to respond to technological challenges in energy efficiency and heat consumption, and it has spent the better part of two years racing to catch up with its smaller but feisty competitor, Advanced Micro Devices.
A year ago, Intel announced a painful corporate overhaul, including a round of cost-cutting that reduced the work force by 10 percent and trimmed $5 billion in expenses. Since then, the company has begun to regain lost market share, and last week raised its sales forecast for this quarter.
