During its Q1 earnings name, Intel offered an replace concerning its 10 nm course of expertise in addition to the ramp up of its Ice Lake-U processor for notebooks, which is the corporate’s first 10 nm design that can be mass produced and broadly obtainable. Qualification for the brand new processors has already began, so programs based mostly on Ice Lake-U can be obtainable by the vacations, as promised. Furthermore, Intel believes that will probably be capable of ship extra 10 nm elements than it initially anticipated.
Ice Lake-U in 2019
Intel began manufacturing of its Ice Lake-U processors in Q1, however Intel has been build up a stockpile of them first earlier than they’re despatched to PC makers for qualification. Once the CPUs are certified — one thing that Intel expects to occur in Q2 — the producer can begin gross sales/shipments of those CPUs, which can doubtless occur in Q3. Considering the lead-time required to get constructed programs on to retailer cabinets, Ice Lake-U-based PCs are on observe to hit the market in This fall (one thing Intel reaffirmed at present).
Intel’s Ice Lake-U is a quad-core processor based mostly on the codenamed Sunny Cove microarchitecture. Among different notable options, on the CPU aspect of issues Ice Lake-U helps VNNI and Cryptographic ISA directions, in addition to Intel’s lengthy, lengthy awaited assist for LPDDR4X reminiscence. Meanwhile on the GPU aspect of issues, that is the primary chip to combine Intel’s Gen11 iGPU, which with as much as 64 execution models, guarantees an enormous step up in efficiency. The CPU can be paired with a chipset natively supporting Thunderbolt 3, 802.11ax Wi-Fi, and a lot of different improvements. The entire Ice Lake-U bundle is anticipated to have a TDP of 15 W, so the product will have the ability to tackle thin-and-light and mainstream laptops.
10 nm Volume Goals Increased
It is noteworthy that Intel now expects to ship extra processors made utilizing its 10 nm course of expertise than initially anticipated this yr as it might probably produce extra these CPUs.
“On the [10 nm] process technology front, our teams executed well in Q1 and our velocity is increasing,” mentioned Bob Swan, CEO of Intel. “We remain on track to have volume client systems on shelves for the holiday selling season. And over the past four months, the organization drove a nearly 2X improvement in the rate at which 10nm products move through our factories.”
Ice-Lake-SP Xeons in 2020
As for 10 nm ramp generally, Intel is just speaking about producing its comparatively small Ice Lake-U processors in volumes this yr, which is the corporate’s typical means of ramping up a brand new node. When it involves their bigger Ice Lake-SP server elements, Intel expects to launch these 10 nm Xeon merchandise in 2020. The firm says that its Ice Lake-SP CPUs can be obtainable in lower than 12 months after its Ice Lake-U merchandise hit the market. In reality, Intel has even suggested buyers to count on 10 nm Xeons to reach “rather sooner than later” in 2020, which might indicate one thing sooner than This fall’2020.
Source: Intel
