Intel has revealed more details about Westmere – the 32nm incarnation of Nehalem microarchitecture. Intel has not only decreased the manufacturing process size from 45nm to 32nm, but has also added new features that result in lower power requirements and faster processing.

One of the main features Intel added to Westmere is power gate for L3 cache. Intel used power gates for processor core that would power down cores when not in use in Nehalem, but L3 cache was always powered up, as it saved the core state of the processor. However, Intel has added a dedicated SRAM to Westmere that stores core state data allowing L3 cache to also power down along with processor core, decreasing overall power requirement further.

By using 32nm process technology Intel is able to fit 1.17 billion transistors on a die that is 240mm2 in size, smaller that 45nm Nehalem processor that has 774 million transistors on 296mm2 die. Also the six core Westmere processor will have 12MB L3 cache compared to 8MB on Nehalem. The Westmere processors will support both 1.5V DDR3 RAM and low voltage 1.35V DDR3, resulting in 20 percent decrease in power consumption by RAM.

Intel has already started shipping Westmere based laptop processors codenamed Clarkdale in January. The company plans to ship six-core desktop part codenamed Gulftown by end of Q1 2010. It is also rumored that Intel will ship quad-core Westmere processors for desktop and server in Q2 2010, but there is no information about when Intel will launch quad core mobile processors based on Westmere.