Intel Core

This article explains the Intel Core microprocessor . For its successor see Intel Core 2 and Intel Core i series , for the microarchitecture of the same name, Intel Core microarchitecture . All processors with the code name "Yonah". For further meanings, see Yonah .

Intel Core is a 32-bit processor family introduced in January 2006 by the manufacturer Intel , which was developed for operation in notebooks ( notebook processor ). The processor family is used in the Centrino or Centrino Duo platform. It was replaced by the Intel Core 2 .

General

With the introduction of this processor family, Intel broke away from its brand name “Pentium”, which had previously been used for all higher-quality processors in the Intel house, and introduced “Core” as a further brand name. The models with one CPU core are called Core Solo , the versions with two CPU cores ( dual-core processor ) as Core Duo .

However, all processors are based on the same The codenamed " Yonah first", which Intel's native dual-core processor is.

architecture

Like the Pentium M processors, the Intel Core processors use a heavily modified variant of the Intel P6 architecture (and not the NetBurst microarchitecture of the Pentium 4 ). Unlike the Desktoppendant Intel Pentium D already both cores are on a the Intel Core The united. The architecture is characterized by comparatively low heat generation and low power consumption with high computing power, but does not offer a 64-bit extension.

Compared to its predecessor, Intel Virtualization Technology and the command extension SSE3 have been added, and there is also a variant of the Intel Core with two processor cores. Both cores have to share the L2 cache ( shared cache ). In the dual-core version, Speedstep works separately for both cores, which means that the power consumption can be kept at a very low level. In the "Enhanced-Deeper-Sleep" mode, the processor can write the contents of the L2 cache to the main memory and thus switch off the L2 cache completely. Since a newer production technology (65 nm) is used, “Yonah”, the only core developed, requires less energy than the last Pentium M core “Dothan” at the same clock frequency; The total power consumption of the two-core variant is also only slightly higher than that of the predecessor “Dothan” with only one core, which was sold as the “Pentium M”.

successor

The complete replacement of the NetBurst architecture decided by Intel , which was used by the Intel Pentium D , among others , is carried out by the Core 2 processors. These have the Intel Core micro-architecture , which was developed on the basis of the Intel Pentium M and the Intel Core.

See also

• List of Intel Core processors