Sun Microsystems appears to have revealed details of a new processor from Intel during a recent presentation.

The 'Dunnington' chip apparently contains six Penryn processing cores divided into three pairs, each sharing a 3MB level 2 cache. All six cores would then share a 16MB level 3 cache.

The 45nm chip is part of Intel's Xeon family, and is targeted at the rack server market. Sun mentioned a possible launch in the second half of 2008.

What appears to be the Dunnington chip was revealed in a slideshow presentation by Sun, which also touted Intel's upcoming Nehalem chips and the systems Sun plans to build around the platform.

The Nehalem chips will feature two-core, four-core and eight-core models, and are expected to be available later this year.

The first links to the Sun presentation were posted on the Aceshardware discussion board on the morning of 23 February pointing to a Sun webpage.

That page had since been removed, although users have begun posting copies of the report to download sites.

Both companies are remaining tight-lipped on the reports. An Intel spokesperson declined to confirm or deny the authenticity of the presentation, but did tell vnunet.com that the Nehalem chips were on track for release this year.

Sun did not return a request for verification or comment on the reports.