Under the tremendous sun of Penang – a tiny state in Malaysia – Intel make official before journalists from all over the planet the secrets that cover his 14th generation of processors.
The new architecture, called Meteor Lake, integrates an artificial intelligence engine so that the user does not depend on the times they imposes the cloud to achieve results. In addition, it is capable of efficiently regulating energy consumption.
The Meteor Lake compute module is the first built on Intel 4 process technology, making it the platform with the highest energy efficiency of history. It’s also the biggest architectural change in 40 years and sets the stage for PC innovation over the next decade.
This family is also the first to adopt the 4-nanometer process, as the chips are preceded by a new layered manufacturing regime, giving them a rectangular appearance and reduced size.
A smarter processor
The Meteor Lake architecture consists of 4 mosaics linked through Foveros 3D packaging technology: the computing tile contains the latest generation E and P cores, the SOC tile integrates a neural processing unit (NPU) that brings AI capabilities to the PC.
Additionally, the tiled GPU couples Intel Arc graphics architecture with discrete-level performance in an integrated form factor. While the Mosaic IO includes integrated Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe Gen 5.0 connectivity.
With a greater number of cores, these processors embrace the hybrid architecture to optimize games, content creation and productivity. They take advantage of the industry’s first bandwidth of up to 16 PCIe 5.03 lanes and DDR5 memory of up to 5600 MT/s.4,5.
This translates to up to 24 cores (8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores) and up to 32 threads. In turn, the performance cores are capable of reaching 5.8 GHz6 with Intel Thermal Velocity Boost.
This miniaturization allowed more transistors to be integrated into a smaller surface area, thus achieving higher switching speeds and clock frequencies, generating less heat and consumption.
The ship of artificial intelligence
But the most important thing is that, with Meteor Lake, Intel has a ticket for the AI ship, since now the algorithm will be able to “understand” and therefore “predict” the operation of the system without having to resort to the Internet processes.
The bulk of these advances were made in tandem with Microsoft. The key link that will unite software and hardware will be Copilot, the intelligent assistant that replaces Cortana and will come natively in Windows 12 edition.
To supply these requirements, it will be mandatory to have a neural processing unit (NPU) incorporated into the PC chip. This will allow processing a 50% of the data outside the cloud.
In turn, Microsoft plans to add Generative AI features to its applications. The idea is to give more functionality to Photos, the Snipping Tool and Paint, to create illustrations based on text instructions.
All of this has served to crown Meteor Lake as Intel’s first PC platform to incorporate a neural VPU, an AI engine integrated into the SoC to efficiently run AI models on the machine itself.
With the new Neural VPU combined with powerful AI accelerators on the CPU and GPU, Meteor Lake will play a crucial role in shaping the future of PC innovation and experiences for consumers and companies.
Optimal results
Regarding energy efficiency, they will have a 35% more of high-performance responsiveness, thanks to an algorithm that, when power is not required, can go to a low-consumption state. In addition, different AI models can be applied in dynamic scenarios, such as in video games.
The chipmaker assured that its 4nm node (Intel 4) is on track for mass production later this year. William Grimm, vice president and director of engineering at Intel, stated this in a talk with the media.
The Intel 4 will be the first to use EUV (Extreme UltraViolet) photolithography machines, leaving behind the DUV (Deep UV) that were used until now.
This will allow smaller details to be manufactured with better precision. Due to the delays with Intel 10 and Intel 7, Intel now has a long way to recover the disadvantage that separates it from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC).
The semiconductor route
It is no coincidence that for this announcement, Intel has chosen Malaysia as a destination. Since not only was it the company’s first subsidiary outside its country, but it has become its greatest value bet.
Intel Corporation has been in this Southeast Asian country for 51 years: it opened its first factory in 1972. Today, the workforce exceeds 10,000 employees, with 6,000 engineers, spread across two campuses. The Penang Assembly and Test (PGAT) is a high-volume, high-mix plant that assembles and tests chips like Core and Xeon by the millions every day. The other is Kulim’s.
In PGAT, Intel silicon dies are mounted on printed circuit board substrates and epoxy is applied. These assembled chips then undergo a series of temperature, stress, performance and quality tests before being shipped to customers.
The assembly and testing process at PGAT consists of six key stages: chip fixation, epoxy and cap for assembly, and platform performance validation (PPV) for testing.
The facilities are involved in two aspects of the production chain: the assembly of various components into the final product and the testing that ensures that all components produced meet standards and specifications for their customers.
The chip maker has invested a total of $8 billion in Malaysia and will spend another $6 billion building new semiconductor facilities, including an advanced 3D packaging plant, according to Steve Long, Intel’s managing director for Asia. Peaceful.
This has contributed to Malaysia becoming the sixth world exporter of semiconductors, with an important contribution from Intel to 20% of the country’s electrical and electronic exports.
This strategic move allows Intel to take advantage of the booming semiconductor industry in the Southeast Asian country and establish a strong position in the advanced packaging market.
Intel’s goal is to carve out a place in the foundry business, dominated by Asian chip giants such as TSMC, Samsung and GlobalFoundries.
Intel has traditionally preferred to focus on its core competency, which is designing integrated circuits (ICs), but in recent years it has opened the doors to other chip designers to manufacture ICs and achieve economies of scale by producing for multiple customers.