One of the main issues the researchers have to overcome is that of power leakage in processors, said Shekhar Borkar [CQ], an Intel fellow, during an interview Monday. Intel engineers are trying to reduce that power leakage while also scaling graphics performance on chips to bring richer multimedia content to smartphones and other portable devices.

Intel aims to boost graphics performance by using an on-chip accelerator that will allow multiple streams of graphics data to be processed simultaneously, using a technique called SIMD, or Single Instruction, Multiple Data. Rendering high-definition video is best done using SIMD techniques, Borkar said.

SIMD is already used in some graphics processors and CPUs. For example, Intel used SIMD with the MMX extensions it introduced for its Pentium processor in the 1990s, which allowed that chip to better handle video on desktops.

However, chip circuits that enable SIMD acceleration have high power leakage and don't scale down very well to low voltages, Borkar said. As video gets more popular on handheld devices, with the arrival of applications like mobile TV, engineers need to come up with new ways to manage power.

At the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, Intel is presenting a paper about a SIMD accelerator that scales smoothly to ultra-low voltages and has circuits that are up to 8 times more energy efficient than what exists today. The technology could find its way into mobile chips such as Intel's Atom processor in five to eight years, Borkar said.