Craig Barrett: "Create technology that does not bore next gen of kids"

San Francisco (CA) - In his last opening day keynote for Intel, Craig Barrett delivered his traditional call on developers to adopt Intel’s tatest technologies and continue to innovate.With one of the most significant shifts in its pruduct strategy ahead, the company focuses on creating complete platforms with a much greater features set than today’s individual processors and chipsets.

Ïf you want to decsribe our industry," Barrett stated, "its either Moore’s Law or innovate and intgrate." According to the executive, the rule discovered by Intel co-founder has changed slightly over time but will not slow down and continue to drive innovations in the digital electronics marketplace. Instead of driving clock rates at ever increasing speeds the company bets on multicores and several new features such as EM64T, its virtualization technology (VT), formerly code-named Vanderpool, active management technology (AMT) or its LanGrande security tech. For the first time Barrett also addressed the need to keep "power levels at a reasonable level" for processors beyond the 65 nm desktop chip Presler, that is expected to be launched in the first half of 2006.

Barrett hopes that the new technologies will spur a new wave of innovation. "We will have to create a technology that does not bore the next generation of kids", he said. As an example of Intel’s vision, employees of West Coast Customs and cast of the MTV show "Pimp my Ride", brought a customized Chrylser 300C onto the stage that included from processors and wireles technologies virtually any technology Intel currently offers, including wireless Internet and GPS that re-routes the driver around rain clouds.

The transistor remains the driving force behind new technologies. "There is so much space in the transistor left and we are going to push it," Barrett said. Intel sees the transistor to scale down to 10 nm prototypes in 2011 from today’s 90 nm and the upcoming 65 nm generation. Beyond that, the outlook was limited but optical technologies offered new opportunities for engineers. "You would be surprised to see where we end up," he said.

Barrett also stressed Intel’s engagement in WiMax to bring wireless broadband into reality. "1 Meg or 2 Meg is not broadband. 50 Meg is broadband," he criticized currently available broadband in the US and said silicon for wireless broadband will be much sooner out than carriers will implement those services. But video presentations of current wiMax projects indicated that Intel does not only count on carriers to adopt WiMax but rather looks to municipalities to create their own broadband network.