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Intel India team lofts a ‘sixer’

Special Correspondent

Designs world’s first six-in-one processor

Xeon processor has 1.9 billion transistors on board
It is used to fuel high-end, server-type computers

Bangalore: The world’s first six-in-one processor has been completely designed and developed in India.

Engineers of the Design Enterprise Group at the Bangalore development centre of chipmaker Intel have crafted the latest Xeon processor, used to fuel high-end, server-type computers.

The 7400-series has 1.9 billion transistors on board to drive six separate cores or computing units. That means after dual and quad processors, we are now offered one chip doing the job of six.

Better performance

Code-named ‘Dunnington’ during its development (the joke among Intel geeks is that it should be renamed DunninIndia), the chip delivers one-and-half times more performance and power savings than earlier Xeon processors, R. Ravichandran, director-sales, Intel South Asia, said at the unveiling of the chip here last week.

Having designed the chip from scratch, the Intel India team also carried out “post-silicon validation,” making sure the design translates into a smooth manufacturing process when it is handed over to the silicon foundry.

Expertise in product design

Intel India president Praveen Vishakantaiah, who personally led the Dunnington team in its formative period, says: “We have achieved considerable expertise in product design and the proof of this is in today’s launch of the world’s first six core x86 processor, which has been completely designed here.”

Terascale chip

The India centre of Intel was also a key partner last year in delivering the world’s first terascale experimental chip capable of one trillion operations per second.

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