It’s no sudden revelation that Intel will be abandoning monolithic compositions starting with its 14th generation Intel Cores. So from Meteor Lake onwards we will see that the processor units will be separated into different chips. It is clear that one of the strengths of this bet is the interconnectivity between the different parts. Something that Intel explained when revealing its Meteor Lake at Hot Chips. Are you ready for the Intel Core 14?
One of the most important advances in recent years that all hardware designers have made without exception is the development of new communication interfaces with the aim of reducing energy consumption in data transfer. Which is increasing as processors become more powerful. This led to the use of new types of interconnections by different brands. Where in the case of Intel, both Foveros and EMIB stand out, which we will see in future Intel processors, as well as in their graphics chips. And it is that the era of the “chipitos” or also known as chiplets, is already a reality. In any case, looking at Intel’s launch timing, we expect it in the second half of 2023.
Intel will give new details of its Meteor Lake CPUs at Hot Chips
While we wait for Intel to launch the Intel Core 13 with Raptor Lake architecture, its successor is already heating up in the corner to come out sometime in 2023. This being a much deeper change by adopting the same philosophy that AMD took with the Ryzen 3000, 5000 and the future 7000. That is, a processor in which instead of being manufactured in a single piece it will be in several. At the moment, Intel has shown us the two different variants of said processor. He has done it at Computex and you can see the images below these lines.
The separation of the elements causes a series of latency losses and increased consumption that must be compensated. This is where Foveros technology comes in. Which is of the 3DIC type. These types of interconnections are not new and consist of a chip that we call Interposer that is located under the elements and that performs the interconnection. However, Intel has never used it in a desktop processor until now. Luckily, during the presentation of Meteor Lake at Hot Chips we will clear up any doubts about how they have managed to intercommunicate the different parts.
The future Intel processor will be made up of several different chips, which have not been described yet. From what we know we will have the so-called Compute Die where the cores and the cache will be and that it will be manufactured by Intel itself. Another of the chips will be the integrated graphics that will be made at TSMC. As for the rest of the chips, we do not know where they will be made and under which nodes. What we do know is that it will be the integrated memory controller for access to RAM and peripherals.
