Intel's New Energy Efficiency Plan

At its annual "Research Day" last week, Intel revealed several technologies focused on energy efficiency, including four breakthroughs slotted for release throughout 2009—platform power management, energy-efficient wireless, 32 nanometer (nm) chips and power clamping for data centers.

The company's 32nm chip is likely to be the first of its kind on the market and will result in an average 30 to 40 percent increase in efficiency according to the company. Smaller in size, but packed with 2 billion transistors, the chips will also drive costs down and performance up, despite requiring a more expensive immersion lithography technique for production, according to Dr. Sanjay Natarajan, director of 32nm process technology at Intel.