A Handful of Broad Architectures
Intel has traditionally maintained two separate and distinct design teams for its CPUs. In the past, one of these design teams was dedicated to desktop and server designs, whereas the other focused on notebook processors.
Today Intel still has two predominant design teams, except that the mobile, desktop, and server lines have been consolidated under one microarchitecture. The design teams work in parallel, and a new microprocessor design built from the ground up comes out every other year. The Core microarchitecture came out in 2006. Nehalem is scheduled for 2008.
But what about other initiatives at Intel, such as the Silverthorne processor, the Tolapai SoC, and the CPU with integrated visuals Larrabee? Who designed these products if Intel’s architects produce new CPU designs every two years?
According to EET, citing the operations manager of the Digital Enterprise Group, Intel pulled engineers from its processor design teams to work on other initiatives. The new organizational units were “charged with designing a handful of broad architectures” (p. 1).