Intel held another one of those Developer Forums this week and said that besides its newly christened i7 next-generation 45nm Nehalem desktop chips, a quad-core energy-efficient dual-processor server part code named Nehalem-EP, a k a Gainestown, will go into production in Q4 as well as Bloomfield, an Extreme Edition of the widget that may be good for 3.2GHz.

Nehalem’s design, which integrates the memory controller, is supposed to triple the speed that data can be written or read from memory and doubles the 3D animation capabilities of older Intel chips. Figure up to 25.6 Gbps per link on a Gainestown part.

To retaliate, AMD’s HyperTransport Consortium upped its HT specification bandwidth by 23% and moved clock speed to 2.6GHz up from 800MHz.

Given the expected proliferation of multi-core chips, Intel made much of a Turbo Mode technology that powers down unnecessary cores and boosts the speed of active cores when the workload ramps up. It’ll show up in Nehalem.

Come the second half of next year one can expect a “second server derivative” called Nehalem-EX, a eight-core Nehalem chip for four-processor servers, mainstream desktops code named Havendale and Lynnfield, and mobile client versions called Auburndale and Clarksfield.

Havendale and Auburndale are slated to have built-in graphics, stealing AMD’s ATI thunder and driving down the thermal envelop as well as the design footprint; Lynnfield and Clarkesfield won’t.

Intel also announced a next generation of parallel programming tools for mainstream client multi-core software development called Parallel Studio. It’s targeted at Microsoft Visual Studio developers.

Intel indicated that its Atom chip for MIDs was still in tight supply and would be for the rest of the year. Intel claims 30 Atom design-wins including Panasonic, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Asus, Compal, Clarion, Benq, Sharp, Trigem, Samsung and outfits most of us have never heard of.

The first of the dual-core Atoms is supposed to come out next month along with Dunnington, Intel’s first and only six-core chip, the last of its 45nm Penryn family, to be officially dubbed the Xeon X7460. Intel said it has a 16MB L3 cache and would target the high-end 4P server space.

AMD’s Shanghai servers – the 45nm Barclona shrink – should be out in November.

Intel is working on a smartphone chip called Moorestown that should appear in ’09 or ’10 and take on ARM. It will have the voice capability that the current Menlow chip lacks.

Intel has carved the Atom market into productivity MIDs, your nettops, consumer MIDs, your navigation systems, and communications MIDs, your basic smartphone.

Lehman Brothers figures nine million-11 million netbooks could be sold this year and upwards of 22 million units next year. Throw in another 1.6 million nettop desktops this year and maybe 5.5 million next year.

Intel also plans to enter the solid-state drive business in the next 30 days producing 80GB devices that HP and Lenovo should use.