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Giants in Tech => Intel => Topic started by: javajolt on August 15, 2017, 07:09:35 PM
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When Intel takes the wraps off its 8th-gen Core processors next week, the company will be launching its 4th generation of chips to manufactured using a 14nm process. But it looks like Intel is almost ready to make the move to 10nm.
A page on the Intel website (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/design/products-and-solutions/processors-and-chipsets/ice-lake/overview.html) reveals that the “successor to the 8th generation Intel Core processor family” is codenamed “Ice Lake,” and it’ll use “10nm+ process technology.”
(http://s4.postimg.org/np0tfra3x/10nm.jpg)
That’s about all we know for certain at this point, but a process shrink usually leads to improved efficiency which can mean better performance and/or longer battery life. Up until recently, Intel had a habit of following a “tick, tock” release calendar, with a tick representing a process shrink (from 28nm to 14nm, for instance), and a tock representing a new microarchitecture.
For the past few chip generations, Intel has focused on enhancing its existing chips rather than doing a die shrink. That wasn’t entirely due to choice: the company had originally planned to move to a 10nm process by the end of 2016 but failed to hit that target.
One interesting thing to note is that Ice Lake chips are described as using 10nm+ technology, which suggests they won’t actually be the first 10nm chips from the company.
As AnandTech speculates (http://www.anandtech.com/show/11722/intel-reveals-ice-lake-core-architecture-10nm-plus), that’s because the first 10nm chips could be the upcoming Cannon Lake processors which are expected to launch sometime after Coffee lake… but which could still be branded as 8th-gen Core processors?
Interestingly, AnandTech also reports that Cannon Lake may be a laptop-only architecture. So the roadmap for mobile chips is Kaby Lake -> Coffee Lake -> Cannon Lake -> Ice Lake, while the desktop roadmap is Kaby Lake -> Coffee Lake -> Ice Lake.
source (http://liliputing.com/2017/08/intels-first-10nm-chips-will-based-ice-lake-archtiecture.html)