Subsequent-gen Meteor Lake CPUs and Intel 4 node stay on monitor for 2023

Intel’s 7nm chip manufacturing node, in any other case generally known as Intel 4, is able to roll right this moment and will probably be used subsequent yr for the next-gen Meteor Lake processor household. That is not strictly information on condition that Intel 4 and Meteor Lake have been due in 2023 on Intel’s roadmap for practically two years now. However official affirmation on Monday that each Intel 4 and Meteor Lake stay on that schedule very a lot is information given Intel’s nicely documented woes with Intel 7, the node previously generally known as 10nm.

Intel’s Ann Kelleher, basic supervisor of expertise improvement, launched the most recent roadmap for the 2022 IEEE Electron System Assembly. It characterises Intel 4 as “manufacturing prepared right this moment” and lists Meteor Lake as the brand new nodes first goal product.

The 10nm node or Intel 7 achieved full quantity manufacturing roughly 5 years later than Intel had initially meant. Intel 4 or the 7nm node is likewise itself nicely behind Intel’s unique plans. However the firm has been making an enormous effort below new CEO Pat Gelsinger to get its chip manufacturing tech again on monitor and affirmation that Intel 4 is wholesome and prepared for manufacturing is arguably the primary vital step in Gelisinger’s IDM 2.0 masterplan for turning Intel round.

Meteor Lake, after all, will probably be Intel’s first chiplet-style CPU for shoppers. Composed of a number of dies, the CPU cores will probably be made on Intel 4, whereas the graphics cores will probably be produced by Taiwanese foundry TSMC on their 5nm node. Additional I/O and SoC tiles will probably be constructed on legacy Intel nodes, most likely Intel 7.

It is price noting that Intel’s thirteenth Gen Raptor Lake CPUs solely landed in September, placing Meteor Lake on what looks like fairly an accelerated schedule. Nonetheless, it is also anticipated that Meteor Lake will restricted to 6 Efficiency-cores where each Raptor Lake and its Alder Lake predecessor supplied as much as eight P-cores.

The upshot it that it appears unlikely that Meteor Lake will straight substitute your entire Raptor Lake lineup as much as and together with the highest Core i7 and Core i9 fashions. As an alternative, it seems to be extra possible that Meteor Lake is a mobile-first design that would additionally see a restricted launch on the desktop, changing entry-level as much as mid-range Raptor Lake CPU fashions.

Intel has type for doing simply that, together with the Broadwell structure, which was the corporate’s first 14nm chip for shoppers, launched as a cell chip, however by no means had a complete desktop roll out.

The brand new roadmap additionally has the Intel 3 node on monitor for the second half of subsequent yr, with Intel 20A as a consequence of be prepared within the first half of 2024 and the Arrow Lake CPU household together with it. Intel 18A is then slated for the second half of 2024, setting a particularly formidable schedule for Intel. if Intel executes all of that, it can have gone a protracted strategy to closing the hole to TSMC and reasserting its conventional function because the world’s most technically superior chip producer. We’ll be watching very fastidiously.