In 2006, Intel introduced the Intel Core microarchitecture to the Intel Core 2 microarchitecture processor with 65nm silicon technology for the first time. As the first generation of multi-core optimized microarchitecture, it extends the concept of energy efficiency first proposed in Intel Pentium M processor mobile microarchitecture, and enhances it with many new innovative features of leading microarchitecture, thus achieving industry-leading performance, higher energy efficiency performance and faster multi-task response.

In the second half of 2007, Intel began to produce the next-generation Intel Core 2 processor family product code-named "Penryn". Penryn processor family is based on Intel's industry-leading 45nm high-k metal gate silicon process technology and the latest Intel Core microarchitecture enhancements. Intel Core microarchitecture has been greatly improved on the basis of Intel revolutionary microarchitecture (currently used by Intel Xeon processor family and Intel Core 2 processor family), which marks another important step for Intel to introduce a new process technology and enhanced microarchitecture or brand-new microarchitecture every year.

Dual-core processors in the 45nm Penryn family have more than 400 million transistors, and quad-core processors have more than 800 million transistors. With the new micro-architecture features, processor family products can achieve higher performance at the same frequency, increase L2 cache by 50%, and expand power management capabilities, so that energy efficiency performance can reach a new level. The Penryn family has also adopted nearly 50 brand-new Intel SSE4 instructions, which can further accelerate the running speed of media applications and high-performance computing applications. Penryn series includes new dual-core desktop processors, quad-core desktop processors, quad-core server processors and dual-core mobile processors.