Silvermont is a new high-performance micro-architecture technology from Intel aimed at market segments with low-power requirements. The micro-architecture achieves energy efficiency by using Intel’s 22nm Tri-Gate transistors. Compared to the current generation of Intel Atom, Silvermont has 3x peak performance and according to standard metrics the micro-architecture produces the same performance at 5x lower power. Dadi Perlmutter, Intel chief product officer, notes that: “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 micro-architecture on a yearly cadence.”
Silvermont features include:
- A new out-of-order execution engine for better 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.
The quad-core “Bay Trail” SoC, “Merrifield” and “Avoton” are other Intel 22nm products expected to be launched later this year. Compute devices built around these products will see improved performance and responsiveness. The “Bay Trail” SoC will be part of the 2013 tablets, it is expected to double compute performance of Intel tablets. Variants of the “Bay Trail” platform will be used in entry laptop and desktop computers. “Merrifield” is aimed at improving battery life, it will support context aware and personal services, ultra-fast connections for Web streaming, and increased data, device and privacy protection. “Avoton” is a second-generation Intel Atom processor SoC, it provides full server product capability including 64-bit, integrated fabric, error code correction, Intel virtualization technologies and software compatibility.
Intel is also working on its next-generation, 22nm Haswell microarchitecture for Intel Core processors. This will deliver performance at lower power levels for mobile devices which will be available later this year.
