Intel processors have been advancing very fast in the past few years. Everyone knows the reason, but it is limited by the architecture and craftsmanship and cannot completely counter AMD for a while. Intel has previously released the first member of the 11th-generation Core, Tiger Lake-U for thin and light laptops, and Tiger Lake-H for gaming laptops and Rocket Lake-S for desktops. The first two are both. 10nm, the latter is still 14nm.
The next step on the desktop is Alder Lake, which is the 12th generation Core. The 10nm process is introduced for the first time, and the hybrid architecture of large and small cores (Golden Cove+Gracemont) is applied for the first time. It is similar to the ultra-low power Lakefield.
The new Intel LGA1700 package interface, matched with 600 series motherboards, does not rule out supporting DDR5 memory for the first time.
What’s next? It is Meteor Lake (Meteor Lake). I heard this name as early as a year ago. It is said that it will be Intel’s first 7nm process high-performance processor, covering servers, desktops, and notebooks. It is expected to be 2022-2023 It came out in 1999, using a brand-new CPU architecture, and it is still a mixed design of large and small cores, one is Ocean Cove and the other is Gracemont.
According to the time node, Meteor Lake will definitely face the impact of AMD Zen 4 architecture, which will use TSMC’s 5nm process.
Of course, Intel and TSMC’s process cannot simply compare the numbers, but it can be expected that Zen4 will definitely be very powerful. Coupled with the dividends of TSMC’s process, Intel’s pressure is still conceivable, and it will not be very good in the next few years.
Now, Intel engineers have submitted a special patch to the Linux 5.10 kernel, adding preliminary support for Meteor Lake for the first time, mainly involving network card drivers.
More information is not yet available, but it is clear that Intel has already started the research and development of the Meteor Lake platform. In fact, not long ago, Intel has begun to recruit software engineers for the new platform.