Intel is on the way to its first 7nm process, a microarchitecture that will be called “Meteor Lake”. The details, inside.
Well, it looks like the news we always wanted to read, but that hasn’t been the case after the lithography problems at Intel. While AMD moved forward from lower levels, Intel remained stagnant and was devastatingly beaten with its performance in the single-core area. It could be a thing of the past, as Intel “Meteor Lake” is on its way. All details see below.
Intel Meteor Lake: 7nm, on track to combat AMD’s 5nm technology
Today we are talking about the first microarchitecture of Intel processors manufactured in the 7-nm process. It will be called “Meteor Lake”, a name that has been leaked in technical documents and driver files. We know about it from Komachi Ensaka, a Twitter user who has leaked the news in the past.
In theory, it will follow the 10nm++ node of “Alder Lake”, an ambitious attempt by Intel to replicate the arm big.LITTLE technology on the x86 architecture. The idea is to try to combine a number of high-performance cores with other high-efficiency cores in one piece of silicon. One example will be Intel “Lakefield”, which will go into production later this year.
Last year, there were reports speculating about “Meteor Lake”, especially about when it would come out. There was talk about the core of “Golden Cove”.
Apart from that, we’re talking about an architecture that would arrive in 2022, when AMD will reach 5 nm by TSMC. That means Intel’s lithography will still be behind, but that’s great news because there won’t be such a big difference between the manufacturing processes. It’s not the same 7nm vs. 14nm as 5nm vs. 7nm.