Intel will next year begin shipping processors with a 1,366 pins, it has been claimed. The interface will use the same land grid array (LGA) as the chip giant's current LGA775 process, but with almost twice as many pins.

According to a report on Chinese-language site HKEPC, the interface will be called Socket B and ups the Voltage Regulator Module from version 11.0 to 11.1.

What could be leaked documentation suggests the LGA1366 is, initially at least, destined for Intel's 'Bloomfield' processor. That name first appeared back in December 2005 as a quad-core desktop chip due late 2008 and fabbed at 45nm.

The timeframe suggests it could be based on 'Nehalem', Intel's next-generation architecture due a year or so after the Core 2 Duo die-shrink, 'Penryn'.

The HKEPC report suggests it will contain 8-12MB of L2 cache and see the return of HyperThreading - presumably giving it the appearance of eight processors.