Intel at Its Core

SAN FRANCISCO -- With a greater sense of urgency than perhaps at any time in its 10-year history, the Intel Developer Forum kicked off Tuesday morning in San Francisco.

The biannual gathering of computer programmers, business partners and customers who build products on Intel(INTC) chips comes as the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has seen its once-unparalleled technology leadership, and its share of the microprocessor market, under siege by rival Advanced Micro Devices(AMD).

On Friday, Intel warned Wall Street that its sales in the current quarter could be as much as $500 million short of its initial projections.

But with a slew of new technology slated for release later this year, Intel's executives appeared confident that the company would soon regain its luster.

By the end of the year, more than 85% of all Intel server products will feature dual-core processors, said Pat Gelsinger, the head of Intel's digital enterprise group.

And 70% of the company's overall product lineup, including desktop and laptop chips, will have dual cores by year's end, he said.

A new chip microarchitecture, which the company officially christened the Intel Core Microarchitecture at the event, will deliver even more important technological innovations.

The common thread across Intel's new technology push is its commitment to energy efficiency, said Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner.

"Energy is on everyone's mind. It's the next frontier," said Rattner, who compared the tradeoffs that chipmakers now must make between energy consumption and performance with the challenges facing the automobile industry.

Microprocessors based on Intel's new technology and slated for release in the second half of the year represent the first fruit of the effort, said Rattner.

Conroe, the code name for Intel's forthcoming desktop processor, will deliver a 40% performance boost while consuming 40% less energy.

Rattner did not specify the benchmark to which the metrics were compared. And Woodcrest, Intel's forthcoming server processor, will offer an 80% performance boost with a 35% reduction in power, according to the company.