Intel Targets Low-Power Server Market With 14nm Broadwell SoCs in 2014

From DailyTech: Intel Corp. (INTC) rebuffed rumors last week that its 14 nanometer (nm) production date had slipped to 2015. The chipmaker says it is on pace for a H2 2014 launch of Broadwell, the die shrink of this year's 22 nm architecture refresh Haswell. This week Intel offered some early clues to its server strategy with Broadwell.

In the past, Intel's Xeon series server chips have traditionally ditched the integrated graphics cores that were used in its laptop Core i-Series chips. But starting with 2011's Sandy Bridge E3-12xx SKUs (code-named Gladden), integrated cores began to creep into some of Intel's server stock, making them true system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs which included a multi-core CPU, graphics, cache, memory controller and PCI-Express connectivity all on a single die.

But there still existed a sharp divide between the lowest powered server chips -- the 32 nm E3-12xx models dipped as low as 25 W for the chip's power consumption, but were still far from the ~5 watt envelope that ARM Holdings plc (LON:ARM) and its allies were targeting for an entire platform power draw.

Instead Intel targeted that market with Centerton Atom (S12xx series) server chips, a 32 nm dual-core design which launched last December. The Atom S1240 drew only 6.1 watts.

With this strategy -- there was a major gap in the middle (9-25 W). The new server Broadwell SoCs will look to bridge that gap, and in the process try to beat off more powerful, but power-efficient offerings from the ARM camp.

The new Broadwell SoCs will have low power (LP) DRAM (LPDDR3) cell memory built directly into the chips. Whether this will be in the form of a second die inside the casing, or (more likely) incorporated into the SoC's primary die remains to be seen.

The company revealed the details at a special event in San Francisco on Monday. Intel's GM of data centers and connected systems, Diane Bryant, commented at the event, "With this new product, we’ll be delivering the best of both worlds: high performance and high density."

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