Intel borrows from notebooks for future server chips

Is Intel really going to be dipping into their notebook chips for server solutions? Perhaps this is the other way around?

Sossaman, the code-name for a Xeon chip for blade servers due in the first half of 2006, derives from the Pentium M family, the company’s notebook chip family, said Stephen Thorne, marketing manager of the server platform group at Intel. Sossaman puts out a maximum of 31 watts, fairly low for server chips, which can boast thermal ceilings of 110 watts.

“We get a number of deployments where power is a big concern,” he said.

To this end, Intel will also release two low-power versions of the Irwindale Xeon chip in late 2005 that consume a maximum of 90 and 55 watts respectively. The low-power Irwindales adopt some energy-efficiency techniques from the Pentium M but are largely based on the architecture of the existing Xeon line, which derives from the Pentium 4. [Read the rest]