Microsoft and Intel have unveiled a plan to fund research into new programming techniques for multi-core processors that is set to change computing at a fundamental level and “break the industry out of a technological cul-de-sac that threatens to end decades of performance increases in computers”, by funding the University of California at Berkeley.

In a move that could leave Intel competitor AMD behind, Intel have plans to release a six-core processor (code-named ‘Dunnington’) before the end of the year, and will follow-up with an eight-core processor (Nehalem) soon after. The joint funding project with Microsoft will likely be of great benefit to the research to be carried out by UC-Berkeley.

The research grant, worth a reported $20M over 5 years, will be used to create independent laboratories at both Berkeley and Illinois, each working on hardware, software and a ‘new generation of applications’ designed to take advantage of multi-core processors.

Microsoft and Intel will be holding a press conference on 25/03/08, which will be headed up by Intel Research’s Andrew Chein and Microsoft Research’s Tony Hey.