Lengthy-time PC trade watchers know that new chip introductions are an vital however typically mundane a part of the PC evolutionary course of. In any case, yearly you’ll be able to rely on semiconductor giants Intel and AMD to convey their subsequent technology CPUs to the market.
This 12 months, nevertheless, issues are totally different – very totally different. First, the latest providing from Intel – codenamed Meteor Lake and formally referred to as Core Extremely – gives what the corporate is looking its largest generational and architectural modifications in 40 years. The brand new chip integrates not just some vital new design philosophies, chip packaging applied sciences and superior know-how help, it is also the primary Intel processor with an built-in AI accelerator, which Intel is looking an NPU (neural processing unit).
Second, that NPU integration is a key indicator of the truth that we have entered right into a critically vital new period of private computing, the age of AI computing. Whereas CPUs and GPUs will proceed to be crucial parts of SoCs (programs on chip) designed for PCs and different gadgets within the close to time period, there isn’t any doubt that AI acceleration is the long run.
Lastly, we’re additionally about to embark on one of the vital aggressive and attention-grabbing PC processor market battles we have ever seen. After years of domination, this shift in computing priorities is opening potential alternatives for AMD – who beat Intel to the market with its AI-accelerated Ryzen 7040 – in addition to Qualcomm, whose extensively anticipated next-generation processor will incorporate the extremely touted Nuvia CPU designs that Qualcomm acquired a number of years again. The brand new Qualcomm chip can be extensively anticipated to supply even greater ranges of AI acceleration than both Intel’s Meteor Lake or AMD’s Ryzen.
Given all these developments, 2024 is seeking to be an absolute banner 12 months for thrilling new PCs. It is also undoubtedly a part of what impressed Intel to make so many large bets in bringing Meteor Lake to market.
At a excessive degree, one of many many intriguing modifications Intel made to Meteor Lake was using a multi-tile chiplet design. Because of this totally different parts of the completed chip had been constructed utilizing totally different chip fabrication applied sciences from totally different firms and packaged collectively utilizing various Intel’s personal distinctive chip packaging applied sciences. The result’s an impressively advanced construction that permits every of the totally different parts to be each price and efficiency optimized. To be clear, Intel has created chiplet designs earlier than for the server market, however that is the primary for PCs to combine so many alternative parts into such a posh bundle. The corporate can be leveraging a chip packaging know-how they name Foveros in Meteor Lake that permits a number of tiles to stacked on high of each other in a 3D trend. Architecturally, it is a powerful design.
Intel prolonged this type of hybrid and versatile design philosophy into a number of of the person parts that make up Meteor Lake, together with the core compute tile, which is the primary to make use of Intel’s personal 4 nm manufacturing course of. Right here, Intel selected to combine various lower-power effectivity CPU cores, along with the primary efficiency cores, in a design that is conceptually much like the “large.little” idea first launched by Arm and later utilized by AMD in lots of their CPU designs. The brand new Intel design gives eight effectivity cores that sit alongside the six efficiency cores, with the purpose of having the ability to deal with each extremely demanding single-threaded purposes in addition to simultaneous operations on a mixture of difficult multi-threaded apps and background-style decrease demanding purposes. In different phrases, they’re making an attempt to accommodate all the primary sorts of duties that get carried out on PCs, from gaming to workplace productiveness, video enhancing, and extra.
To enhance the facility effectivity and battery lifetime of Meteor Lake-based programs even additional, the corporate additionally positioned two effectivity CPU cores on a separate SoC tile. This permits the extra demanding compute tile to be turned off when it is not wanted whereas nonetheless having the ability to proceed performing primary computing duties.
The NPU, or neural processing accelerator, which additionally sits on the SoC tile, builds on the Movidius VPU (visible processing unit) know-how that Intel bought again in 2016. Intel’s NPU is anticipated to supply uncooked processing efficiency of roughly 10 TOPS, however extra importantly, the quantity of software program purposes that Intel expects to help is considerably greater than AMD and even Qualcomm. The online result’s that the real-world worth of what Intel is bringing to the market with Meteor Lake is far greater than what the easy TOPs efficiency quantity suggests. For instance, Intel stated that Adobe’s full Artistic Suite and the open supply Blender software shall be amongst many purposes supported with its first-generation AI accelerator.
One other large change in Meteor Lake is the mixing of a GPU tile that leverages the corporate’s Arc discrete GPU structure versus the built-in graphics choices that Intel has supplied previously. The Xe LPG GPU tile gives as much as 2x the efficiency of its earlier built-in graphics options. From an IO perspective, Meteor Lake additionally incorporates help for Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi7 in addition to Thunderbolt 4.0 and PCIe Gen5. As well as, the media encoder permits using 8K video.
“The brand new Core Extremely gives the corporate a stable alternative to start to reassert a efficiency lead, which others will then have to catch as much as”
Collectively, it is a powerful set of applied sciences that Intel hopes will catapult it again right into a place of important innovation from the semiconductor trade perspective general. It could additionally prefer to, once more, lead the market in consumer gadget innovation as properly. How this really performs out stays to be seen, however there’s little doubt that Intel’s need to regain its place as a frontrunner in each semiconductor design and manufacturing could be very actual. The brand new Core Extremely gives the corporate a stable alternative to start to reassert a efficiency lead, which others will then have to catch as much as, and guarantees to make the 2024 PC market a particularly attention-grabbing one to observe.
Bob O’Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Analysis, LLC a know-how consulting agency that gives strategic consulting and market analysis providers to the know-how trade {and professional} monetary neighborhood. You’ll be able to observe him on Twitter @bobodtech
