Intel talks about its 10nm consumer architecture with ice lake, lakefield and project athena

It seems that something is going to change in 2019 at Intel and that is that for the first time the manufacturer is seriously talking about its 10nm architecture with Ice Lake, LakeField and Project Athena. At last Intel comes out of its long winter with this miniaturization architecture and gives us details about one of its chips and where we could see the first of them.

Three new projects to increase efficiency, performance and connectivity

In the end it seems that Intel is talking at this CES 2019 about the progress made with the much weathered 10nm architecture. After announcing its new creations for the current 9th generation with repetitive processors, it seems that we have new more interesting news that opens a new horizon for the consumer electronics giant.

In the announcement, Chief Executive Gregory Bryant discussed up to three new projects highlighting new architecture and new-era connectivity. These are Ice Lake and Lakefie l for processing platforms and Project Athena for mobile computing and Artificial Intelligence. Let's see what each of them offers us.

10nm Ice Lake architecture on the way

Source: Anandtech

At last it seems that the first generation of 10nm Intel processors for home consumption is yet to come. After having given in previous publications details about the core design of this new architecture and the new generation of Gen11 graphics, it seems that finally Ice Lake will be the name under which these two configurations will be united, it forms a single silicon built in 10nm.

In addition, it seems that the brand will follow the same procedure carried out when they released the 14nm generation, that is, what we will see first will be the launch of Ice Lake-U, the family of 10nm processors for portable and mobile equipment. In this way, they will create initial processors with medium integration performance and complexity to fine-tune all the details and delve into high-performance processors.

Specifically we have, thanks to the guys at AnandTech, the characteristics of the first processor of this architecture. It is a saddle with four cores, 8 processing threads and 64 graphic units where they say they have obtained a 1 TFLOP processor with graphics performance. So, the strength of this CPU is undoubtedly its improvement in graphics performance over the Broadwell-U architecture .

To reach these figures, it was necessary to expand the memory bandwidth to 50GB / s with memories that would presumably reach 3200 MHz in LPDDR4X configuration on Dual Channel. Something that would also mean making the jump from DDR4-2933 to 3200 MHz.

Source: Anandtech

Connectivity and energy efficiency for Ice Lake

Source: Anandtech

And this is not all, since these chips would also implement support for the new Wi-Fi 6 protocol, 802.11ax through a CNVi interface together with an Intel CRF module. Also we would get native compatibility with Thunderbolt 3. Support for ISA cryptographic instructions is also included along with the new 4th generation graphics chips that will allow us automatic learning through an IR / RGB camera compatible with Windows Hello facial authentication.

Source: Anandtech

With this processor of only 15W TDP on the Ice Lake-U platform in combination with 12 "screens we could obtain autonomy in optimized devices of up to 25 hours in continuous use. With more space available due to the miniaturization of components, the battery will rise from 52Wh to 58Wh in a device that is only 7.5mm thick. They really are features that promise with this new architecture, especially for mobile and portable devices.

Lakefield and Foveros 3D Printing Technology

Source: Anandtech

LakeField is the name that the blue brand has given to a new chip created using Foveros processor 3D printing technology. Foveros is a method by which processing elements can be stacked in 3D to form the final chip. Thanks to this technology we could assemble a processor or " chiplet " that had elements such as CPU, GPU, cache, and other input / output elements with different architectures, for example, 10 and 14 nm. In this way chips would be created according to the needs of each specific case with greater versatility and in an easier way.

Well, thanks to this technology Intel has implemented one of these tiny chips with the name of Lakefield. This chip contains a single Sunny Cove core and four Tremont Atom cores along with Gen11 graphics all in 10nm architecture. In this way the chip achieves an idle consumption of only 2 mW.

Source: Anandtech

Intel claims that this chip has been commissioned by an OEM manufacturer of electronic devices, but at no time has the recipient been revealed. Intel plans to continue the 10nm architecture and have the first units for sale in mid-2019 or even the last quarter, with the arrival of Christmas 2020. We still have a year left for this folks, so it better be put the batteries.

Connectivity and artificial intelligence at the user level with Project Athena

Last but not least, Intel has spoken about its initiative called Project Athena, which aims to unite the manufacturer with its OEM customers to discuss advances in 5G technology and Artificial Intelligence at the user level.

This platform is based on software solutions so that in the not too distant future, users can connect permanently through their devices to cloud servers with artificial intelligence capabilities. This means that everything we do through the interface of our team will be located remotely on large servers with remote access.

Although it is not clear if this will be the final objective of this project, but they do aspire to provide greater security to the devices and bring Artificial Intelligence closer to the users. We will see where this ends, meanwhile we can inspire not "me robot" and be scared by what is to come.

In our opinion, it was time for Intel's 10nm technology to officially come to light, and we had tangible evidence of the brand's advancements. It is said that the good is expected, and we trust that this is the case, the great problem for Intel is that there are some gentlemen called AMD who are already taking steps forward at 7nm, so be careful.

Tell us what you think about these advances in 10 nm by Intel, the battle between them and AMD will turn around, or the gap between them will be opened.

AnandTech Font