This year, Intel is moving to 45-nm processor manufacturing with a desktop chip codenamed Penryn, which will launch November 12, Otellini said. More than 750 designs for Penryn-powered computers are underway, Otellini said. The chip boasts 410 transistors.

Then will come Intel’s new 45-nm microarchitecture called Nehalem, which begins with eight cores and 16 threads. It will launch during the second half 2008, with the design work already complete. Otellini demonstrated a Nehalem-based machine running Windows XP during his speech.

Of course, the 45-nm manufacturing node enables Intel to pack more transistors on a silicon die; each Nehalem chip will have 731 million transistors. But the breakthrough in enabling it to keep power-consumption low has been its so-called high-K metal gate transistor technology. Basically, it is a new type of material used as a thin insulator layer, or gate, on a microprocessor. By replacing silicon dioxide with Hafnium-based high-K, Intel saw a 20% performance boost and a 10x electron leakage reduction at the gate. I call this the magic of 45-nanometers, Otellini said.

Intel has four 45-nm fabs, including two in the US, in Oregon and Arizona, which are up and running. Next year it will add another 45-nm fab in Israel and one in New Mexico. Each facility cost more than $4bn, Otellini noted. To create new markets, scale is important, he said.

And to prove the company will continue to keep pace with Moore’s Law, Otellini showed a silicon wafer with functioning 32-nm SRAM (synchronous random access memory) chips, which will launch by 2009. These 32-nm chips will be built using the second generation of high-K transistors, he said.

The company also has new silicon in store for mobile. In the first half of next year, it will launch a new Centrino chip codenamed Menlow for ultra-mobile handheld PC devices. Menlow will deliver 10x power reduction, Otellini said. By 2010, Intel expects to have a chip that will enable a 10x reduction in idle power, he said.

In 2009, Centrino mobile chip shipments will overtake desktop for the first time, Otellini predicted. However, mobility has a lot of room to improve…we need new devices, new services, new products, he said. WiMax from our perspective is the network most of these things will be built on. He also called WiMax a new global network that will hopefully enable seamless roaming.

While last year Intel was involved in 10 WiMax trails, today there are 120, including a new project in Japan co-funded by Intel and KDDI. He said Lenovo, Acer, Panaonic, Toshiba and Asus will integrate WiMax into notebooks next year.

Also next year, Intel will launch an integrated WiFi-WiMax chipset for notebooks and ultra-mobile PCs, Otellini said. It will be part of the Montevino platform, which will ship next May. It will support both high definition formats and will take the silicon footprint down by 50%. A 25 watt version for very, very small form factor products will also be available, he said.

He projected 150 million people will be covered by WiMax next year, mostly in North America. By 2010, that number will rise to 750 million, according to Otellini.

Intel also plans to bring its graphics more up to speed with its processor technology; its graphics chipsets are currently being built in the 90-nm node, lagging behind its processors. Next year, it will launch 65-nm graphics chipsets. In 2009, it will move into 45-nm integrated graphics, which is building graphics capabilities directly into the microprocessor, Otellini said. It’s something we didn’t have the [silicon] die budget to do before, he said. By 2010, the company expects more than a 10x performance boost in graphics compared to its current products, Otellini said.

Intel will build a system-on-a-chip mobile chip called Silverthorne. The chipmaker will also demo a higher-end, many-core processor called Larrabee next year, which will also have integrated graphics. It’s not dependent on a new software paradigm, Otellini noted.

The company is also working on new chip-packaging technology, which will be 60% smaller than prior configurations, Otellini said. Smaller is better. Smaller is cheaper, he said. And by 2008, all its 45-nm and 60-nm chipsets will be free of halogen. This follows its announcement last April that all its microprocessors would be lead-free.