Intel's first 'Ice Lake' 10-nanometer processors aimed at notebooks are shipping soon

AppleInsider · May 28, 2019 11:48AM

Intel has started to ship 10-nanometer 10th-generation Core processors, the chip producer confirmed at Computex, with the first wave of processors consisting of variants meant for mobile computing in notebooks, rather than desktop versions.

Previously advised in a meeting with investors earlier in May, the Computex announcement for Intel's 10th-gen "Ice Lake" processors all use a long-delayed 10-nanometer production process. Using the "Sunny Cove" core architecture and the Gen11 graphics engine, the chips all boast improved performance over previous releases, as would normally be expected.

Intel's first wave of chips cover a wide area of the consumer market, from Core i3 to Core i7, with up to four cores and eight threads, a maximum turbo frequency of 4.1 and a maximum graphics frequency of 1.1GHz. With thermal design points at 9 Watts, 15 Watts, and 28 Watts, the initial chip releases are more intended for notebook and tablet usage rather than for desktops.

The range is also claimed by the company to be the first to "enable high-performance AI on the laptop," with Intel's DL Boost able to assist for low-latency workloads. The included Gen11 graphics architecture helps provide up to 1 teraflop of vector compute performance, while Intel's Gaussian Network Accelerator is built in for lower-power AI usage.

The graphics, Intel Iris Plus, offers almost twice the performance for rendering, including HEVC encoding with 4K HDR support, and is capable of providing double the frames per second in gaming than previously offered. Integrated Thunderbolt 3 and Wi-Fi 6 support helps bolster its connectivity, including Wi-Fi at gigabit speeds.

Intel is starting to provide its first 10th-gen Core processors to manufacturers in volume, with vendors expected to ship first devices using the processors by the holiday shopping period.

The low TDP of the processors makes them fairly good candidates for Apple to use in its Macs and MacBooks in the future, albeit not on high-end products like the MacBook Pro line until higher-performance versions ship.

mattinoz · May 28, 2019 12:18PM

Pros were last week So MacBook update tomorrow then as WWDC build up.

prismatics · May 28, 2019 12:20PM

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Of course Intel will keep saying that their process is progressing and healthy, but it makes absolutely no sense from an economical point of view.

Nobody that is digging deeper into that matter believes what Intel is saying.

10 nm will never make Intel any money. However, it would have if we lived in a reality where AMD didn’t exist any longer.

mr. h · May 28, 2019 12:20PM

For anyone who's wondering, this is the one that will (FINALLY!!!) introduce LPDDR4 support: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13774/intels-keynote-at-ces-2019-10nm-ice-lake-lakefield-snow-ridge-cascade-lake

mdriftmeyer · May 28, 2019 12:43PM

Apple should move to Zen2 on all but their Macbook's and then when Zen2+ comes out make it complete. The TDP of Zen2, IPC, performance already has surpassed anything Intel can compete against. The margin is only going to widen with TSMC 7nm+ for Zen2+ combined with NAVI APUs.

Nothing tethers Apple to Intel any longer. The Thunderbolt licensing is now fully open and it is time to move on. The yields are phenomenal on TMSC 7nm with both GPUs and CPUs for AMD utilizing it. Costs are considerably lower than anything Intel offers to boot.

Server Market share is going to plummet with ROME EPYC's arrival.

prismatics · May 28, 2019 1:09PM

mdriftmeyer said:

Apple should move to Zen2 on all but their Macbook's and then when Zen2+ comes out make it complete. The TDP of Zen2, IPC, performance already has surpassed anything Intel can compete against. The margin is only going to widen with TSMC 7nm+ for Zen2+ combined with NAVI APUs.

Nothing tethers Apple to Intel any longer. The Thunderbolt licensing is now fully open and it is time to move on. The yields are phenomenal on TMSC 7nm with both GPUs and CPUs for AMD utilizing it. Costs are considerably lower than anything Intel offers to boot.

Server Market share is going to plummet with ROME EPYC's arrival.

Of course this would be a nice proposition, but Apple seems not interested in general purpose computing.

Their directions they are aiming at are entirely different; T2, Marzipan, Code Notarization, Custom ARM Chips, Increasingly unserviceable Machines, No General Purpose Mac Pro and Flash Prices Extortion on MacBook demonstrate this perfectly.

wood1208 · May 28, 2019 1:16PM

So when will 10nm processors based Macbook/Air/Pro releasing ? Safe to expect Fall 2019 ?

cropr · May 28, 2019 2:27PM

prismatics said:

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Dell has already announced XPS 13 machines with i7 and i5 Ice Lake CPUs, just contradicting what you are claiming

prismatics · May 28, 2019 2:49PM

cropr said:

prismatics said:

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Dell has already announced XPS 13 machines with i7 and i5 Ice Lake CPUs, just contradicting what you are claiming

It’s a U suffix part which is not designed for high performance but low power consumption.

wizard69 · May 28, 2019 3:27PM

prismatics said:

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Of course Intel will keep saying that their process is progressing and healthy, but it makes absolutely no sense from an economical point of view.

Nobody that is digging deeper into that matter believes what Intel is saying.

10 nm will never make Intel any money. However, it would have if we lived in a reality where AMD didn’t exist any longer.

TSMC is doing fine with their quasi equivalent processes. Even if Intel’s labs are too dirty for high yields they can always go to the bleeding edge with AMDs chiplet approach.

melgross · May 28, 2019 3:49PM

prismatics said:

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Of course Intel will keep saying that their process is progressing and healthy, but it makes absolutely no sense from an economical point of view.

Nobody that is digging deeper into that matter believes what Intel is saying.

10 nm will never make Intel any money. However, it would have if we lived in a reality where AMD didn’t exist any longer.

Your claims are very strange, and untrue.

melgross · May 28, 2019 3:50PM

prismatics said:

mdriftmeyer said:

Apple should move to Zen2 on all but their Macbook's and then when Zen2+ comes out make it complete. The TDP of Zen2, IPC, performance already has surpassed anything Intel can compete against. The margin is only going to widen with TSMC 7nm+ for Zen2+ combined with NAVI APUs.

Nothing tethers Apple to Intel any longer. The Thunderbolt licensing is now fully open and it is time to move on. The yields are phenomenal on TMSC 7nm with both GPUs and CPUs for AMD utilizing it. Costs are considerably lower than anything Intel offers to boot.

Server Market share is going to plummet with ROME EPYC's arrival.

Of course this would be a nice proposition, but Apple seems not interested in general purpose computing.

Their directions they are aiming at are entirely different; T2, Marzipan, Code Notarization, Custom ARM Chips, Increasingly unserviceable Machines, No General Purpose Mac Pro and Flash Prices Extortion on MacBook demonstrate this perfectly.

Also untrue.

prismatics · May 28, 2019 4:31PM

wizard69 said:

prismatics said:

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Of course Intel will keep saying that their process is progressing and healthy, but it makes absolutely no sense from an economical point of view.

Nobody that is digging deeper into that matter believes what Intel is saying.

10 nm will never make Intel any money. However, it would have if we lived in a reality where AMD didn’t exist any longer.

TSMC is doing fine with their quasi equivalent processes. Even if Intel’s labs are too dirty for high yields they can always go to the bleeding edge with AMDs chiplet approach.

The difference between Intel and TSMC is that Intel uses self-aligned Quad Patterning with cobalt interconnects while TSMC does so with double patterning (their 7nm ArF node). The ugly thing is, that with Quad Patterning, you have more than double the steps required to fully process a wafer, increasing the machine time per wafer and the likeliness that while exposing the wafer to whatever is needed to process it, defects develop. Its not that their fabs are dirty, its that there is no way Intel can ramp up 10 nm to _mass_ production (e.g. high performance Desktop, Notebook and Xeon parts) before 7 nm will be there. TSMCs next upcoming N7 Pro will give you EUV, eliminating multiple patterning steps, reducing the total required step count by more than half of the steps, increasing yield.

By the way, ASML is the single company that remains which can produce tools for the upcoming processes; It's same for everywhere else where you have costs that are rising. If Intel folds too much in the next years, they will lose much of their manufacturing capability as new nodes are exponentially rising in cost.

Meanwhile, Intel continues to believe, or rather must communicate to investors, that the self-aligned Quad Patterning 10 nm process will be the way, which is, factually incorrect. By the way, Intel starts EUV at 7 nm, and I expect them to be back in game when they can release the process beyond risk production.

prismatics · May 28, 2019 4:41PM

melgross said:

prismatics said:

mdriftmeyer said:

Apple should move to Zen2 on all but their Macbook's and then when Zen2+ comes out make it complete. The TDP of Zen2, IPC, performance already has surpassed anything Intel can compete against. The margin is only going to widen with TSMC 7nm+ for Zen2+ combined with NAVI APUs.

Nothing tethers Apple to Intel any longer. The Thunderbolt licensing is now fully open and it is time to move on. The yields are phenomenal on TMSC 7nm with both GPUs and CPUs for AMD utilizing it. Costs are considerably lower than anything Intel offers to boot.

Server Market share is going to plummet with ROME EPYC's arrival.

Of course this would be a nice proposition, but Apple seems not interested in general purpose computing.

Their directions they are aiming at are entirely different; T2, Marzipan, Code Notarization, Custom ARM Chips, Increasingly unserviceable Machines, No General Purpose Mac Pro and Flash Prices Extortion on MacBook demonstrate this perfectly.

Also untrue.

I'd be happy to find out why. Maybe you can show me a different perspective

JWSC · May 28, 2019 7:33PM

prismatics said:

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Of course Intel will keep saying that their process is progressing and healthy, but it makes absolutely no sense from an economical point of view.

Nobody that is digging deeper into that matter believes what Intel is saying.

10 nm will never make Intel any money. However, it would have if we lived in a reality where AMD didn’t exist any longer.

Never say never. It could come back to haunt you.

mr. h · May 28, 2019 10:21PM

mdriftmeyer said:

Apple should move to Zen2 on all but their Macbook's and then when Zen2+ comes out make it complete. The TDP of Zen2 … already has surpassed anything Intel can compete against

I'm not really familiar with AMD's stuff. I know they've had competitive things in the desktop space (which doesn't interest me at all) for a while, but was under the impression they didn't have much to offer for notebook computing. I had a brief look and could only find mention of desktop class (65 W, 95 W, and 105 W parts) Zen 2-based CPUs.

What are the part numbers of the AMD Zen 2-based CPUs that compete with Intel's notebook class (45 W and below) CPUs?

mr. h · May 28, 2019 10:38PM

OK, I found some on this wikipedia page, and a little elsewhere. The integrated graphics look to be where these processors absolutely smash Intel's offerings, but the AMD parts do not support LPDDR4, and top out at four CPU cores. Is LPDDR4 on AMD's roadmap?

macxpress · May 28, 2019 10:48PM

wood1208 said:

So when will 10nm processors based Macbook/Air/Pro releasing ? Safe to expect Fall 2019 ?

Probably a good bet.

canukstorm · May 28, 2019 11:45PM

prismatics said:

cropr said:

prismatics said:

Don‘t expect 10 nm to come anytime soon for devices that are more complex than dual core ultra low power, maybe quad core. The defect density in 10 nm will never get to levels where it is viable to replace 14 nm.

Dell has already announced XPS 13 machines with i7 and i5 Ice Lake CPUs, just contradicting what you are claiming

It’s a U suffix part which is not designed for high performance but low power consumption.

That U-suffix part is a 15W quad-core processor. The same type designed for the 13" MBP non-TouchBar model. Even at only 15W TDP, they perform pretty well. On top of that they will now support up to 32GB of LP-DDR4 RAM. There was a rumor very recently about a 13 " MBP coming out this Fall that will support 32GB RAM. I'm willing to bet that this is the processor that's going in it.

chasm · May 29, 2019 3:37AM

I wonder if Apple has been waiting for this for the non-Pro MacBook line (yes, I know everyone thinks they will go ARM with those machines, and I agree ... but not this year or next IMO). I would love to hear anything about a forthcoming MacBook update using this initial set of 10nm Intel chips. I would expect the MBA to benefit from mid-range 10nm chips later on, and the LPDDR4-supporting chips to find their way into the MBP line too, though we’ll likely have to wait a year for that.

canukstorm · May 29, 2019 9:51PM

chasm said:

I wonder if Apple has been waiting for this for the non-Pro MacBook line (yes, I know everyone thinks they will go ARM with those machines, and I agree ... but not this year or next IMO). I would love to hear anything about a forthcoming MacBook update using this initial set of 10nm Intel chips. I would expect the MBA to benefit from mid-range 10nm chips later on, and the LPDDR4-supporting chips to find their way into the MBP line too, though we’ll likely have to wait a year for that.

As far as this Fall goes, I would expect this to come to the MB / MBA / 13" MBP. SKU's for higher-end laptops like the 15" MBP won't be available till 2020.

Intel's first 'Ice Lake' 10-nanometer processors aimed at notebooks are shipping soon

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