Intel ha annunciato la nuova architettura Silvermont con la quale il maker statunitense punta a proporre sul mercato dei chip che sappiano rispondere bene alla necessità dettate da un consumo di potenza molto contenuto negli ambiti più applicativi più disparati, da quello degli smartphone (mobile) a quello dei data center (cloud ma non solo).

L'architettura Silvermont sarà quindi alla base di un ampio numero di processori e SoC di vario tipo, realizzati con l'ausilio del processo di fabbricazione proprietario che ruota intorno alla produzione di transistor 3-D Tri-gate con un processo a 22nm.

Per fissare le idee, in ambito SoC, Intel promette performance fino a 3 volte superiori con un consumo di potenza ridotto fino a 5 volte.

Tra i prodotti Silvermont Intel cita i SoC (System-on-Chip) "Bay Trail" dedicati in particolare ai tablet ma anche ai notebook e ai desktop di piccole dimensioni. Intel assicura che i SoC "Bay Trail" per tablet raddoppiano le prestazioni rispetto alle sue soluzioni attuali "Clover Trail". L'arrivo sul mercato di tali chip avrà luogo nella seconda parte dell'anno.

Entro la fine dell'anno corrente saranno commercializzati anche i chip "Merrifield", con i quali saranno equipaggiati gli smartphone di fascia alta destinati a brillare sia per il livello di prestazioni che per la durata della batteria.

Con "Avoton", infine, Intel propone soluzioni per microserver, storage e cloud tipicamente utilizzate nei data center e capaci di vantare un rapporto performance-per-watt di primissimo piano. Si tratta di chip Atom di nuova generazione che, unitamente ai "Rangeley" per router, switch e sistemi di sicurezza, saranno lanciati nella seconda parte dell'anno corrente.

Intel announced its brand new, low-power, high-performance microarchitecture named Silvermont. The technology is aimed squarely at low-power requirements in market segments from smartphones to the data center. Silvermont will be the foundation for a range of innovative products beginning to come to market later this year, and will also be manufactured using the company's leading-edge, 22nm Tri-Gate SoC manufacturing process, which brings significant performance increases and improved energy efficiency.

"Silvermont is a leap forward and an entirely new technology foundation for the future that will address a broad range of products and market segments," said Dadi Perlmutter, Intel executive vice president and chief product officer. "Early sampling of our 22nm SoCs, including "Bay Trail" and "Avoton" is already garnering positive feedback from our customers. Going forward, we will accelerate future generations of this low-power microarchitecture on a yearly cadence." The Silvermont microarchitecture delivers industry-leading performance-per-watt efficiency. The highly balanced design brings increased support for a wider dynamic range and seamlessly scales up and down in performance and power efficiency. On a variety of standard metrics, Silvermont also enables ~3x peak performance or the same performance at ~5x lower power over the current-generation Intel Atom processor core.

Silvermont: Next-Generation Microarchitecture
Intel's Silvermont microarchitecture was designed and co-optimized with Intel's 22nm SoC process using revolutionary 3-D Tri-gate transistors. By taking advantage of this industry-leading technology, Intel is able to provide a significant performance increase and improved energy efficiency.

Additional highlights of the Silvermont microarchitecture include:

• A new out-of-order execution engine enables best-in-class, single-threaded performance.
• A new multi-core and system fabric architecture scalable up to eight cores and enabling greater performance for higher bandwidth, lower latency and more efficient out-of-order support for a more balanced and responsive system.
• New IA instructions and technologies bringing enhanced performance, virtualization and security management capabilities to support a wide range of products. These instructions build on Intel's existing support for 64-bit and the breadth of the IA software installed base.
• Enhanced power management capabilities including a new intelligent burst technology, low- power C states and a wider dynamic range of operation taking advantage of
• Intel's 3-D transistors. Intel Burst Technology 2.0 support for single- and multi-core offers great responsiveness scaled for power efficiency. "Through our design and process technology co-optimization we exceeded our goals for Silvermont," said Belli Kuttanna, Intel Fellow and chief architect. "By taking advantage of our strengths in microarchitecture development and leading-edge process technology, we delivered a technology package that enables significantly improved performance and power efficiency ? all while delivering higher frequencies. We're proud of this accomplishment and believe that Silvermont will offer a strong and flexible foundation for a range of new, low-power Intel SoCs."

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