SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Intel shared a number of product announcements at its Intel Architecture Day 2020.

Intel's upcoming "Tiger Lake" mobile processors [anandtech.com] will improve performance with "Willow Cove" cores (a small IPC gain from "Sunny Cove", but higher clock speeds), and feature Intel Xe integrated graphics with up to 96 execution units [anandtech.com]. The chips use an upgraded "10nm" process Intel calls "10nm SuperFin" [anandtech.com], indicating improvements to the FinFET [wikipedia.org] transistor technology. Intel claims this is the "largest single intranode enhancement in Intel history", with a 17-18% transistor performance jump from their original "10nm" node.

Intel's Alder Lake hybrid/heterogeneous desktop CPUs [anandtech.com] are set to be released in 2021. These will use a big/small core configuration that first appeared in Intel's Lakefield, and is similar to ARM's big.LITTLE [wikipedia.org] (which was redesigned for more flexibility as DynamIQ). Alder Lake will use big "Golden Cove" cores which are the successor to Sunny/Willow Cove, and "Gracemont" Atom cores. Leaks point to configurations topping out at "8+8" (8 big cores, 8 small cores).

Intel plans to launch a high-performance discrete "Xe-HPG" GPU for gamers [anandtech.com] in 2021, but will use a third-party fab to build it. The GPUs will support real-time ray-tracing, like Nvidia and AMD's next-generation GPUs. Leaks indicate that TSMC will build the GPUs [wccftech.com], using a "6nm" node [anandtech.com].

extra:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15972/intel-previews-4layer-3d-xpoint-memory-for-secondgeneration-optane-ssds [anandtech.com]
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15975/intel-xehpc-gpu-status-update-4-process-nodes-make-1-chip [anandtech.com]
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ex-intel-employees-outs-dirt-about-intel-talks-about-internal-difficulties.html [guru3d.com]
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15980/intel-next-gen-10-micron-stacking-going-3d-beyond-foveros [anandtech.com]
https://wccftech.com/intel-confirms-sapphire-rapids-processors-in-2021-with-ddr5-pcie-5-0-and-cxl-1-1/ [wccftech.com]
144-layer QLC NAND SSDs

Original Submission