Intel in a tangle over Tanglewood chip design

SHIFTS IN how Intel is designing its future Tanglewood technology are causing ructions at the chip giant, according to sources in Fort Collins.

Intel, you may recall, bought HP's design team not so long ago, and started "adjusting" its plans for the future server processor.

Originally, Tanglewood was being designed by the guys that Intel took off Compaq's hands over in Hudson. That team had got as far as taping out its design for Tanglewood, an eight plus one core design.

But after Intel bought the HP design team, it cancelled the DEC boys and girls design, and Son of Tanglewood was born.

But sources claim that the new fangled Tanglewood design isn't as good as the original one. It's a two core on a die design now, based on McKinley stuff. The Hudson design might have had slightly less performance than the Fort Collins design, but were much much smaller. But Intel appears prepared to press ahead with the Tanglewood plan of record and will bung two dies together on an MCM. Morale at Hudson ain't so good.

But the old Tanglewood design isn't dead in the water. An Indian design team is working on Whitefield, a four core microprocessor which uses the original Tanglewood interface. Things are more complicated than they seem, however, and Intel people are shuttling over from the US of A to India to help untangle the problems.

And then there's Bloomfield, another X86 product with cores a-plenty. This design, say the sources, is being subject to continued re-definition, as people higher up the chain look at how Bloomfield fits into the overall Intel marketing plan.

Sources say a firm called PA Semi, which has a web site here, are receiving resumes on their fax machine. PA Semi looks interesting from its web site. Is it going to be a competitor against the Cell processor, perhaps? µ

See Also
Intel's Whitefield takes four core IA-32 shape
Intel may buy out HP Itanium crew
Mysteries of Intel Tanglewood spill out
Intel gives fresh spin to point-to-point 32, 64 bit idea
HP Itanium chip team sold to Intel, more reports
Intel Project Z: So secret designers don't know what it is