At the IEEE's International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, Intel plans to present more than a dozen technical papers that will range from a first look at its new quad-core Itanium processor to developments in new memory technology to an update on Intel's tera-scale processor. However, the chipmaker will focus most of its attention on Silverthorne, which has been designed for what Intel executives call mobile Internet devices or MIDs. Since the 2007 Intel Developer Forum, company officials have been talking about the new 45-nanometer processor, but the ISSCC conference marks the first time the company's engineers will talk about Silverthorne's technical properties.

Meanwhile, eWEEK's Scott Ferguson has put together an overview of what to expect, based on pre-event interviews with Intel CTO Justin Rattner and microprocessor industry analyst John Spooner. eWEEK coverage can be found here.

Intel unveiled Silverthorne at its Bejing Developer's Forum last April. Silverthorne is slated for use in two-chip "Menlow" chipsets that will support high-density solid-state disks. Although hotly anticipated by mobile developers, the new Intel mobile chips were recently criticized by Glenn Henry, president of competitor Via's CenTaur processor division. Henry said Intel "constrained performance and compatibility," in order to avoid cannibalizing lucrative Core2 mobile sales.

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