Intel is very good about sticking to its road map was. A six-core CPU which is based on the Itanium design should be out imminently, when Intel then focus to a brand-new architecture called Nehalem moved as Core i7 to be marketed. The core i7 will to eight cores characteristics, eight-core systems available in 2009 or 2010. (And an eight-core AMD project called Montreal is reportedly on tap for 2009.) After that, the confused chronology.
Intel reportedly canceled a 32 core project called Keifer, slated for 2010, perhaps because of its complexity (the company won ‘t confirm this, though). That many cores requires a new way to treat memory, apparently you can not have 32 brains are pulling back from a central pool of RAM.
But we expect that the nuclei spread when the kinks are ironed out: 16 cores by 2011 or 2012 is plausible (when transistors to re-size to 22 nm) are predicted to decline, with 32 cores by 2013 or 2014 easily within reach. Intel says “Hundreds” of cores may even go down the line.
The gigahertz race largely abandoned, both AMD and Intel are trying to get more cores on a die to package stay and help with multitasking processing operations improve.
Miniaturization of chips will continue to fitting these cores and other components in a confined space are very important. Intel will develop 32 nanometer processors (down from today’s 45nm chips) in 2009.