Intel's Six-core "Westmere" Processors Coming in 2010
"Westmere" processors will be reportedly Intel's six-core processors for desktop and servers, built with the 32nm process and included at the company's roadmap for 2009-2010.
According to Intel's roadmaps, Westmere architecture will take advantage of Intel's 32nm manufacturing technology,
and will not have many differences compared to Nehalm generation of chips, except from the switch to the 32nm (45nm for Nehalem) the use of six cores instead of the 8-core implementation for Nehalem and a total 12MB of L3 cache. In addition, Westmere will, according to Intel's Pat Gelsinger, have a new set of instructions called AES-NI, that gives over 3x the encryption and decryption rate of AES processes compared to before. AES-NI may be included in the integrated graphics of Westmere. It is also suggested that Westmere, unlike Nehalem, will have the integrated graphics released at the same time as the processor.
Westmere will be the successor of the 45nm Nehalem microarchitecture, which will be available in Q2 of 2008, according to Intel. The first family of the quad-core CPUs for desktop and servers will be codenamed "Bloomfield", which is expected to feature a triple-channel memory controller, 8MB of shared L3 cache as well as QuickPath interconnect bus.
Westmere will be the successor of the 45nm Nehalem microarchitecture, which will be available in Q2 of 2008, according to Intel. The first family of the quad-core CPUs for desktop and servers will be codenamed "Bloomfield", which is expected to feature a triple-channel memory controller, 8MB of shared L3 cache as well as QuickPath interconnect bus.