Intel recently implemented the Whiskey Lake microprocessor architecture. Understanding that this is the fourth improvement in Skylake architecture in 2015, what are the new features?
Meltdown Variant 3 and 5, Solution Whiskey Lake or Cascade Lake Processors?
“The Whiskey Lake” was inaugurated a few days ago with the arrival of new mobile chips. They are codenamed Whiskey Lake-U and have a very low TDP or thermal barrier.
While the Whiskey Lake microarchitecture is a new evolution of Skylake, it is the fourth one to be precise. Some rumors have caused the assumption of a fineness of engraving in 14 nm+, but there is nothing like that. Whiskey Lake is from the same 14 nm+ process as Coffee Lake.
Whiskey Lake, an architecture with hardware patches
The primary difference between “Whiskey Lake” and “Coffee Lake” is the implementation of a hardware patch to increase security against variants 3 and 5 of the meltdown error. This would have less impact on performance than a software solution.
The upcoming Cascade Lake microarchitecture will also include the most important hardware patches, including variant 2 of the Spectrum bug. Intel says software patches reduce performance by 3 to 10%, while hardware armor would have a “much less” effect…….