Intel is expected t release new server systems featuring 16 processing cores in total, by the end of the summer.

This quarter will see the launch of Intel?s latest MP platform codenamed ?Caneland?. MP means''multi-processor' and refers to servers that can support 4 or more processors. Caneland is the platform name and is composed of the Tigerton processor and the Clarksboro chipset. First publicly demonstrated in October of 2006 and based on Intel?s Core microarchitecture, Caneland is expected to be the world?s 1st quad-core volume MP server platform in the market.

Kirk Skaugen, Intel vice president and General Manager of the Server Products Group, provided some details about Caneland in avideo posted at Intel's blog.

Kirk mentioned that Caneland has been shipping since June, talked about how we expect Caneland?s 16 cores to double the performance of our previous MP offering on some workloads.

The Caneland architecture will initially be used in server systems, although Skaugen said that the company eventually hopes to extend it in some form to consumer offerings.

The Tigerton processors, which top out at 2.93GHz, are the first of Intel's quad-core chips to be designed to run in multiprocessor systems. They will also come in a 50W low voltage flavour - making the prospect of very powerful and very dense blade servers a delicious reality.