IDF 2009: Intel continues to pursue Moore's Law
 Moore's Law clearly alive and well. (Credit: Juniper Foo/CNET Asia) SAN FRANCISCO--There's no doubt that the Intel Developer Forum has come a long way since it was first started in 1997. As its CEO and president Paul Otellini pointed out in his opening keynote speech today, IDF was pretty much a PC event 12 years ago, but today it involves people from multiple industries. He added that Intel's architecture has moved beyond PCs to other devices such as handhelds and consumer electronics. Increasingly, too, Otellini noted that the focus has shifted from things like speed and size to "differentiation... around things like bandwidth, user interface, social networking, and even tweets". 22nm and 32nm processors But what has not changed over the years is Intel's relentless pursuit of Moore's Law. In line with the company's two-year tick-tock strategy of shrinking the transistor size, the Intel CEO today unveiled, for the very first time, a silicon wafer containing chips built on the 22nm manufacturing technology. With the 22nm, Intel is able to squeeze more than 2.9 billion transistors into a chip the size of a fingernail. He revealed that the 22nm chip is expected in the second half or 2011.  For the first time, Intel CEO Paul Otellini shows off a silicon wafer built on the 22nm manufacturing technology. (Credit: Juniper Foo/CNET Asia) Otellini also announced that Intel has begun production of the world's first 32nm "Westmere" chip, which will integrate a graphics core with the CPU. The 32nm chips will be available as early as the fourth quarter of this year. With the move to 32nm, the company will subsequently introduce a new architecture called Sandybridge, due out end of next year. While not much more was mentioned about this, Otellini did show a demo of an early version of Sandybridge running Windows 7.  Sandybridge, the next architecture for the 32nm chip, is slated for an end-2010 rollout. (Credit: Juniper Foo/CNET Asia)  The upcoming "Arrandale" 32nm processor for laptops will be the first highly integrated chip of its kind from Intel. (Credit: Juniper Foo/CNET Asia) In his hour-long keynote, Otellini highlighted a new concept "of building a continuum, making all these devices work together in a seamless... familiar fashion". Recognizing that need for a seamless Internet experience for users across computing devices, Intel has embarked on a program to encourage development and sales of apps, starting with Netbooks and later with other Atom-powered devices. Called the Intel Atom Developer Program, this initiative will support multiple operating systems and runtime environments to facilitate compatibility across platforms. This will minimize the need to reprogram the apps for other platforms, thereby reducing the time and cost for development. "The goal that we have for developers is very simple," Otellini told the audience. And that is "to write once and run it on all devices."  Mockup of an app store shown. (Credit: Juniper Foo/CNET Asia) Intel hopes that by creating a framework to develop apps for its Atom products, it can "unlock a Netbook's potential, while opening a new sales distribution channel". The Santa Clara-based chipmaker is working with Netbook partners that currently include Dell, Acer and Asus to create storefronts to sell these apps. Tags: Paul Otellini, Juniper Networks Inc., Netbook, silicon wafer, Moore
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