A new film title from the Intel and IBM studio? No, Geyserville is Intel’s new code named 600 MHz Pentium chip which is targeted at mobile systems that can crank down their clock rate to conserve battery power.

At Intel’s three-day Developers Forum in Palm Springs, California, company executives previewed chips that operate at their maximum clock rate when plugged into AC power, but step down to a lower voltage and frequency when drawing power from a battery. The technology was demonstrated in Pentium II chips running at 500 MHz in maximum performance mode and 400 MHz in battery optimized mode. The company said it will roll out Geyserville-enabled Pentium IIIs running at 600 MHz or higher before the end of the year.

Not to be out done, IBM has been working “down the mine” on a new microprocessor chip that teams computational abilities with a dramatically increased high-speed memory &√Ǭ£45;- up to 32 megabytes &√Ǭ£45;- all on the same chip. Most of today’s microprocessors must exchange data with separate memory chips, which impedes performance. Without getting too tech on you, the application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, uses copper circuitry as small as 0.15 micron.

“This is a leading-edge technology,” says an analyst with Cahners In-Stat Group. “They really are ahead of everyone else in the industry.” This system-on-a-chip will “allow them to put together very sophisticated consumer products,” he adds, predicting that the copper chip will be used in a new generation of graphics accelerators, set-top boxes, and digital TVs, phones and cameras.

http://www.ibm.com/  

http://www.intel.com/