Intel's next generation

Updates to Pentium 4, Centrino and Xeon lines were announced at Intel's Developer Forum

Intel last week disclosed details of its enterprise processor roadmap, including future chips with multiple processor cores.

The new chips will allow firms to carry out more work with fewer servers, cutting costs and enabling greater flexibility.

At the firm's developer forum in San Jose, Intel added two new codenames to its enterprise roadmap for server processors. Tulsa is a 32bit Xeon chip that will contain two processor cores, where each core will also process multiple code threads, while Tanglewood is a multicore version of the 64bit Itanium chip. Intel did not disclose when either will ship, but the company's new roadmap does not show either processor before 2005.

"We can move to a world of multiple threads on a single core and multiple cores on a single package, then multiple processors in a single system," said Ajay Malhotra, general manager of Intel's enterprise marketing and planning group.

Intel also announced a new desktop chip that will ship within the next few weeks. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition runs at 3.2GHz and adds 2MB of L3 cache to the 512kB L2 cache of prior Pentium 4 processors. This desktop chip is aimed at power users and gamers, Intel said, and is therefore regarded as a competitor to AMD's Athlon 64 desktop processor that will launch next week.

Intel also unveiled the follow-on to its Pentium M mobile processor. Codenamed Dothan, the new chip doubles the L2 cache to 2MB. Dothan will ship by the end of this year, while Sonoma, an upgrade to the Pentium M-based Centrino mobile platform, is due late next year. Sonoma will support a new processor and 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN capability.