The Fall Intel Developer Forum 2007 has brought some surprises, of which the most interesting are not related to the new products showcased or announced. Tuesday, the first day of the Intel Developer Forum, also showcased a new Intel company image. The company seems determined to shun its cold, somewhat condescending image that it was associated with in the past.

Whenever I think of Intel, I can't help but remember my visit at the museum which the company has running at its headquarters. It was either in 1998 or early 1999 and I visited the premises on a field trip with the Computer Science class at my high school. Without going into many details, I can say that I was left with quite a bad taste. A somewhat funny incident happened when we powered one of the computers there, and the OS wouldn't boot up because... it was an expired beta version of Microsoft Windows.

However, nearly a decade later, Intel seems committed to change the way it's perceived. Quite clearly, it's hard to think the main reason isn't financial, but either way, it's something. Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini referred to IDF 2007 as the "Industry Developer Forum" and not the "Intel Developer Forum," presumably trying to show Intel is now more interested in cooperation with its partners and clients.

They also had senior executives to chat with the press later in the evening, another quite unusual tactic by the world's largest semiconductor company. Clearly, Intel has become much more dynamic, friendlier, and more innovative over the recent years.

At the San Francisco event, the CPU giant has announced launch dates for its next generation of microprocessors, demonstrated future CPU designs that support up to eight cores, and looked ahead to the 32nm manufacturing processes it will use on chips in 2009. Shortly, Intel is to use the 45-nm process in its upcoming Penryn processor, due in November, and Silverthorne and Nehalem processors, slated to appear early and in the second half of next year respectively. Penryn will also use a innovative a hafnium-based hi-k dielectric and a metal gate solution. Currently, the company uses a 65-nm process to manufacture chips.

The new 45-nm Penryn CPU will launch on desktops with a high-end quad-core model, the Core 2 Extreme QX9650. Intel's CPU will feature a large 12MB of L2 cache and run at at least 3GHz. The Penryns also feature a new, faster divide technique called Radix 16.

Apart from CPUs, Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network cards and ICs, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors, and other electronic devices related to communications and computing. The company was founded in 1968.