At the core of Bulldozer processors are "modules", which integrates two "tightly linked" and slim processor cores. According to AMD, the cores integrate their own L1 caches, but share high-bandwidth resources such as a floating point unit, L2 cache as well as fetch, decode and prediction units to enable "chip multi-threading (CMT). Intel, in contrast uses an approach called chip multi-processing, which uses complete individual cores and multi-threading.
AMD said that Bulldozer will run at clock speeds of up to 3.5 GHz. The processors will be manufactured by GlobalFoundries in a 32 nm process. One Bulldozer module with two cores will house about 213 million transistors and have a surface area of just 31 mm, including L2 cache.
The upcoming 8-core Bulldozer processors are likely to have more than 1 billion transistors as the entire chip will also integrate L3 cache as well as a Hypertransport 3.1 controller. The future Valencia Opteron, which will likely be called the Opteron 4200 series, will be available with six and eight cores. The Opteron 6200, code-named Interlagos, will debut with 8, 12 and 16 cores.
