Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread

[DrMrLordX]

There's some rumors about a Tigerlake Refresh, which could have been renamed Alder Lake.

That was (essentially) my initial impression of Alder Lake-S. Ice Lake-S was pulled from the rumour mill/roadmaps (to the extent that it was ever on roadmaps) and Alder Lake appears in its place with a 202 launch. If Intel were going to scrap Ice Lake-S and replace it with Tiger Lake-S instead (perhaps as a Tiger Lake refresh renamed to Alder Lake, as you suggest), then wouldn't it use Willow Cove . . .?

In desktops, Alder Lake would be a significant advancement over Rocketlake with the move to 10nm process allowing two <100mm2 chips to be used to get to 16 cores.

Which is assuming Intel is willing to use EMIB in a mainstream volume product (read: not Lakefield) before they launch Sapphire Rapids. It would make sense for them to do so. Margins might not be so good on the chip if it has to be priced competitively. At a minimum, such a product would require three dice (two 8c dice + I/O-iGPU die). The package size would also be large. LGA1700's shape would seem to hint at such a configuration.

7nm in 2021 is going to end up being low volume product, limited to the HPC Xe and likely Ryefield.

What exactly is Ryefield?

If Alder Lake is using Golden Cove, it'll be a third significant iteration under 10nm. That seems less likely.

The alternative course of action for Intel (as compared to the above) would have been for them to scrap Ice Lake-S and Tiger Lake-S entirely and leapfrog to Alder Lake-S w/Golden Cove in 2021. Since Ice Lake was Sunny and Tiger Lake was Willow, it does make a certain amount of sense to move to Golden if Intel is, in fact, ready to roll out that uarch in that time frame. It really boils down to this question: is Alder Lake its own product, or is it a renamed Tiger Lake Refresh?

Where would ADL-S fit in if RKL-S is Willow Cove and somewhere around early 2021? End of 2021 is definitely Golden Cove.

Also a valid question. You can also turn it around and ask, "where does Rocket Lake-S fit in if it's going to be replaced ~6 months later by a Golden Cove product with a higher core count"? Intel finds itself in an extremely awkward situation. If Alder Lake-S is indeed Willow Cove, it should still have much better thermals than Rocket Lake-S, along with (potentially) higher core counts assuming Intel doesn't try to go fully monolithic.

 

[Maxima1]

Also a valid question. You can also turn it around and ask, "where does Rocket Lake-S fit in if it's going to be replaced ~6 months later by a Golden Cove product with a higher core count"? Intel finds itself in an extremely awkward situation. If Alder Lake-S is indeed Willow Cove, it should still have much better thermals than Rocket Lake-S, along with (potentially) higher core counts assuming Intel doesn't try to go fully monolithic.

More than 6 in likelihood. RKL-S is either very late 2020 or early 2021. ADL-S could come out late 2021, and still be several months away from MTL-S, since Intel will only start producing stuff with the 7nm around the introduction with ADL-S. Mobile Tiger Lake is this year. Golden Cove will definately be out in 2021 for mobile, so I don't understand how the calculation would be that it's better to hold back despite AMD plowing through new processes and new architectures. Intel even gave us the roadmap showing new architectures each year....

Do you know what's going to be awkward? 7nm MTL-S Ocean Cove vs. RKL-S or ADL-S on Willow Cove.

 

[DrMrLordX]

RKL-S is either very late 2020 or early 2021

It's a 2021 product, possibly as late as March (Q1).

Do you know what's going to be awkward? 7nm MTL-S Ocean Cove vs. RKL-S or ADL-S on Willow Cove.

Meteor Lake shows up in 2022, assuming all is well with 7nm.

 

[Maxima1]

It's a 2021 product, possibly as late as March (Q1).

Looked back at the old client and the commercial roadmap, and it looks like that is correct, since they've fallen behind the scheduled releases.

Meteor Lake shows up in 2022, assuming all is well with 7nm.

Right. MTL-S looks like late 2022/early 2023. It's still going to cream ADL-S Willow Cove, especially RKL-S if we find out eventually that ADL-S is just like ICL-S/TGL-S.

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's still going to cream ADL-S Willow Cove, especially RKL-S if we find out eventually that ADL-S is just like ICL-S/TGL-S.

Either way, it needs to be the best thing Intel has produced in over a decade. And if that's Ocean Cove then it's the first product you-know-who will have touched in his time at Intel. Pity it's going to take so long to get it to market. One wonders if Intel has a backup plan to move it to Samsung if necessary.

 

[mikk]

If Alder Lake is using Golden Cove, it'll be a third significant iteration under 10nm. That seems less likely.

Look in the architecture roadmap, Intel won't agree with you. 2019 Sunny Cove, 2020 Willow Cove, 2021 Golden Cove. Unless Golden Cove goes for 7nm Intel pretty much confirmed there will be 3 signfications iterations (if CNL is ignored). The news from pcgamesn is baseless about ADL and Willow Cove, he don't know more and out of a sudden people here thinking about ADL-S using Willow Cove, it needs more than that. Same happened with RKL, all people jumped in it must be Skylake which (most likely) isn't. Now this settles and people jump to the next rumor. If Intel is really going for a Willow Cove refresh they wouldn't use the Soc name of a next generation version and the completely new and much bigger LGA is questionable if it's a refresh of RKL-S with just more cores. They should support DDR5 and PCIe5 which I doubt Willow Cove Mainstream is able to. That seems less likely.


They might release a Tigerlake refresh in 2021 with more than 4 cores for mobile, it would make sense if ADL-P isn't ready in 2021.

 

[Maxima1]

Unless Golden Cove goes for 7nm Intel pretty much confirmed there will be 3 signfications iterations (if CNL is ignored).

If Intel is really going for a Willow Cove refresh they would't use the Soc name of a next generation version and the completely new and much bigger LGA is questionable if it's a refresh of RKL-S with just more cores. They should support DDR5 and PCIe5 which I doubt Willow Cove Mainstream is able to. That seems less likely.

Golden Cove is shown for 2021, so it's 10nm, since Intel first will only be producing GPUs on their 7nm.

Yup. Alder Lake was noticed a looong time ago. It came after Tiger Lake. It looks like it's on last 10nm process and judging by the architecture roadmap, it must have the Golden Cove cores with the updated features.

Intel Alder Lake

Well it looks like the 'Lakes saga' does not finish after Tiger Lake. The next micro-architecture after Tiger lake is purported to be Alder Lake. Ashraf Eassa an intel share holder who regularly posts on The Motley Fool tweeted the following below...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

 

[liahos1]

Some updates from CES - all intel it looks like. A mix of cometlake and icelake. Interesting to see NEC coming back to the US market and potentially Sony re-entering the market (separate from Vaio).

I'm looking forward to the Intel Keynote tonight at 5pm PT. Anandtech got a little tigerlake news but mentioned that the mean of the introduction was going to be during the keynote.

 

[mikk]

Golden Cove is shown for 2021, so it's 10nm, since Intel first will only be producing GPUs on their 7nm.

Yup. Alder Lake was noticed a looong time ago. It came after Tiger Lake. It looks like it's on last 10nm process and judging by the architecture roadmap, it must have the Golden Cove cores with the updated features.

Intel Alder Lake

Well it looks like the 'Lakes saga' does not finish after Tiger Lake. The next micro-architecture after Tiger lake is purported to be Alder Lake. Ashraf Eassa an intel share holder who regularly posts on The Motley Fool tweeted the following below...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

Yes exactly, that's why ADL must be on 10nm. The first 7nm product is a HPC GPU in H2 2021, so it pretty much rules out ADL. If there is really a refresh of TGL-U in 2021 based on the Willow Coves architecture (in case ADL-P has been delayed) they wouldn't use the old naming of a next generation SOC. If someone believes in Willow Cove for ADL they must also believe in Meteor Lake going for 10nm Golden Cove. Btw impressive: Ashraf thinks that it may be 10nm+++

10nm+++ wasn't even a thing 2 years ago and looks like ADL is indeed going to use 10+++

 

[liahos1]

If its a 2021 product it would be 10nm+++ right?

Cannonlake was 10nm
Icelake is 10nm+
Tigerlake is 10nm++
Every past that should be 10nm+++

 

[Gideon]

Some updates from CES - all intel it looks like. A mix of cometlake and icelake. Interesting to see NEC coming back to the US market and potentially Sony re-entering the market (separate from Vaio).

I'm looking forward to the Intel Keynote tonight at 5pm PT. Anandtech got a little tigerlake news but mentioned that the mean of the introduction was going to be during the keynote.

Obviously it's all Intel (though I found no mention of Intel in the Sony teaser) because AMD will only announce it's CPUs and lifts it's NDA onlly after the keynote, in a couple of hours.

Nvidia accidentally already leaked at least one Renoir design for instance. And it's also quite clear that Intel will get more design wins regardless, they are the by-far dominant player. But If you expect AMD to have none or only 1-2 you're also gonna be sorely dissapointed.

 

[liahos1]

Obviously it's all Intel (though I found no mention of Intel in the Sony teaser) because AMD will only announce it's CPUs and lifts it's NDA onlly after the keynote, in a couple of hours.

Nvidia accidentally already leaked at least one Renoir design for instance. And it's also quite clear that Intel will get more design wins regardless, they are the by-far dominant player. But If you expect AMD to have none or only 1-2 you're also gonna be sorely dissapointed.

not what i expect. I'm just going by what's been announced so far.

 

[yeshua]

That's weird.

Almost all new laptops presented at CES 2020 feature Comet Lake CPUs - actually I haven't seen a single laptop with Ice Lake. Just announced new Intel NUCs feature Comet Lake CPUs.

Either Intel has given up on Ice Lake or Tiger Lake is around the corner but not yet ready for prime time.

 

[liahos1]

That's weird.

Almost all new laptops presented at CES 2020 feature Comet Lake CPUs - actually I haven't seen a single laptop with Ice Lake. Just announced new Intel NUCs feature Comet Lake CPUs.

Either Intel has given up on Ice Lake or Tiger Lake is around the corner but not yet ready for prime time.

yes many cometlake -

new 16:10 dell xps13 is icelake
Acer spins are icelake

though there were other icelake products obviously on market:
Acer Swift 5
Dell Inspiron 15 3593
Dell XPS 2-1
HP Spectre x360
Lenovo Yoga c940
Lenovo Yoga s740
Surface Laptop 3
Surface Pro 7
Razer Blade Stealth 13

etc

 

[liahos1]

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold: Combining Foldable Displays, 5G and Lakefield into a… Laptop?

www.anandtech.com

Lakefield makes its appearance again. Ironic that Lenovo is likely going to be first to market with this device before Surface Neo.
$1500 seems like a DOA starting price. Maybe I can get my company to get me lol

 

[jpiniero]

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold: Combining Foldable Displays, 5G and Lakefield into a… Laptop?

www.anandtech.com

Lakefield makes its appearance again. Ironic that Lenovo is likely going to be first to market with this device before Surface Neo.
$1500 seems like a DOA starting price. Maybe I can get my company to get me lol

MS is waiting for Lakefield Refresh, plus it seems like MS isn't done with the software either.

 

[jpiniero]

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15338/IMG_20200106_170610.jpg

Anyone want to guess at Tigerlake's die size? They are certainly using all of the available package space between the CPU and the PCH.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Anyone want to guess at Tigerlake's die size? They are certainly using all of the available package space between the CPU and the PCH.

It's not significantly larger. I'd say any increase is coming from the bigger CPU cores. I'm getting 140-150mm2. This is assuming the PCH die hasn't changed, which is reasonable.

MS is waiting for Lakefield Refresh, plus it seems like MS isn't done with the software either.

No they are not.

Another article talks about how Windows 10X is needed for taking full advantage of they hybrid nature of the CPU, and how it won't be available with the initial Thinkpad X1 Fold release.

The first generation is announced just now. Microsoft also took their sweet time releasing Icelake and Picasso.

For the Surface Neo many articles pointed out how they want to wait for developer support before getting the device out. Expect LKF-R Neo by end of next year.

I can also tell you the Thinkpad isn't that much early. They expect "middle of this year" for availability. That makes Neo at most, 6 months late.

 

[tamz_msc]

Looks like Tiger Lake is 10+, not 10++ as was being speculated.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1214370904127328256

 

[JasonLD]

Looks like Tiger Lake is 10+, not 10++ as was being speculated.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1214370904127328256

At least it might mean Tiger Lake is actually happening this year. Or 10++ is now 10+ and 10+ is considered 10 now. I have no idea what they go by all those pluses these days.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Which is assuming Intel is willing to use EMIB in a mainstream volume product (read: not Lakefield) before they launch Sapphire Rapids.

Lakefield uses Foveros, not EMIB.

Anyway, neither Rocket nor Alder needs EMIB. Their OPIO can scale to 100GB/s bandwidth as evidenced by their eDRAM.

This is more then plenty enough, and it doesn't make packaging more complex by integrating a tiny chip to facilitate connections.

EMIB is if they need really high bandwidth, like with HBM2 memory. This is why Ponte Vecchio has it, because its a GPU. Kabylake-G used PCIe x8 connection to communicate with its Vega GPU. Vega chip though, used EMIB for its HBM2 memory.

What exactly is Ryefield?

Successor to Lakefield Refresh.

 

[lobz]

At least it might mean Tiger Lake is actually happening this year. Or 10++ is now 10+ and 10+ is considered 10 now. I have no idea what they go by all those pluses these days.

People here in the past weeks tried to tell me it's coming in Q1.

 

[lobz]

That's weird.

Almost all new laptops presented at CES 2020 feature Comet Lake CPUs - actually I haven't seen a single laptop with Ice Lake. Just announced new Intel NUCs feature Comet Lake CPUs.

Either Intel has given up on Ice Lake or Tiger Lake is around the corner but not yet ready for prime time.

Why is that weird? Aside from 5-6 people with very hard-driven goalposts here was able to draw the not-so-difficult conclusion that Charlie Demerjian is right and ICL is practically some marketing SKUs with just enough volume to make every major vendor to create a couple of designs and then that's it.
Until somebody can provide me with the number actual shipped ICL chips, I will believe the one with the best track record yet regarding intel's 10nm: Charlie.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Lakefield uses Foveros, not EMIB.

Hmm, thought they used EMIB on one of the chip layers instead of stacking monolithic dice. Maybe I misinterpreted their presentation.

Anyway, neither Rocket nor Alder needs EMIB. Their OPIO can scale to 100GB/s bandwidth as evidenced by their eDRAM.

Isn't latency also in play here? Though nobody's said anything about how EMIB connections affect latency versus "traditional" MCM configurations. At least not that I've seen.

Successor to Lakefield Refresh.

Hmm. That's gonna be pretty far out then.

At least it might mean Tiger Lake is actually happening this year.

If it didn't, that would be pretty embarassing. Ice Lake launched in 2019 so I assumed it was a given that Tiger Lake would actually come out this year, especially since Intel isn't pushing past 4c on those parts anyway.

 

[mikk]

So both Icelake and Tigerlake are build on 10+, really? I wonder what products Intel is planning for 10++ and 10+++. On the client side there is only Alder Lake coming after Tigerlake as far as we know.