Intel today revealed several significant design features for the company’s 2011 2nd Generation Intel Core processor family at the Intel Developer Forum. The new and enhanced features will further extend Intel’s chip performance and battery life leadership, and add a number of visually related features built right into the chips.

Codenamed “Sandy Bridge,” the chips will be based on Intel’s first new “visibly smart” microarchitecture produced on the company’s cutting-edge manufacturing factories, or “fabs,” at 32-nanometer (nm is a billionth of a meter) process technology with second- generation high-k metal gate transistors.

“The way people and businesses are using computers is evolving at an explosive rate, fueling demand for an even more powerful and visually appealing experience,” said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group. “Our upcoming 2nd Generation Intel Core processor family represents the biggest advance in computing performance and capabilities over any previous generation. In addition to offering these features inside Intel-based laptops, we plan to scale these advances across our server data center and embedded computing product portfolio.”

The processor family will include a new “ring” architecture that allows the built-in processor graphics engine to share resources such as cache, or a memory reservoir, with the processor’s core to increase a device’s computing and graphics performance while maintaining energy efficiency.

The 2nd Generation Intel Core processor also includes an enhanced version of Intel Turbo Boost Technology. This feature automatically shifts or reallocates processor cores and processor graphics resources to accelerate performance, tailoring a workload to give users an immediate performance boost when needed.

Laptops and PCs powered by the 2nd Generation Intel Core processor family are expected to be available early next year. You can get more information about Intel’s announcement here. In the two videos Intel employees talk about the new Sandy Bridge processor design.