Intel Corporation will start production shipments of its first desktop and notebook processors produced using the 45nm fabrication process late this year and will formally launch in early 2008, some sources familiar with the product roadmap have indicated. Although early this year Intel"s vice president Kirk Skaugen promised that the first 45nm Intel Xeon processors will be available in H2 2007, Intel Core 2 Duo code-named Wolfdale, Intel Core 2 Quad code-named Yorkfield and code-named Penryn mobile chips made using the same production technology will only be launched in Q1 2008.
The world"s largest chipmaker announced in March that the new "Penryn" chips will have greater instructions per clock execution, which means that they will be faster and more efficient even at the same clock-speeds compared to the current generation chips. As well, the new chips will be able to run at higher clock-speeds compared to today"s Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad products. Each of Intel"s dual-core Penryn chips will have 410 million transistors, up significantly from 291 million of current dual-core Conroe processors, however, thanks to 45nm process technology, the chips will have die size of 107 square millimetres, down about 25% from 155 square millimetres of the Conroe.