Intel ‘Lakefield’ Hybrid Processors to Power the Future of Ultraslim and Foldable Laptops

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posted on 4 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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Intel has announced two new chipsets with a hybrid architecture that will offer manufacturers a bit more flexibility when it comes to designing portable PCs.

Intel has announced its first-ever hybrid CPU series under the new ‘Lakefield’ architecture. The new series will be targeting ultra-portable notebooks and upcoming dual-screen and foldable-display notebooks. The new processor range makes use of the high-power and low-power core architecture, which isn’t new, but it is definitely a step ahead for future devices.

Intel is also making use of Foveros 3D and EMIB 2.5D packaging technologies for the new Lakefield series. 3D stacking of complex logic circuits is nothing new, but Intel is taking a step ahead. With Foveros 3D stacking Intel will enable logic-on-logic integration of all high-performance circuits, including CPU cores, GPUs, and dedication AI accelerators.

The packaging allows Intel to make CPUs that are 56 percent smaller in size compared to the current generation. This in turn would allow manufacturers to make smaller motherboards, which would lead to a significant improvement in the overall design of PCs.

Compared to an 8th Gen Core i7 Y-series mobile CPU, these new chips consume as little as 2.5mW of power in standby, a reduction of 91 percent. The new series includes two CPUs- the Intel Core i5-L16G7 and Core i3-L13G4. Both feature a Sunny Cove core and four Tremont cores. Sunny Cove was originally announced in 2018, and it is the same architecture used by the current 10th Gen 10nm 'Ice Lake' CPUs for notebooks. Tremont on the other hand uses the same 10nm architecture and succeeds Intel's low-power designs found in Atom, Celeron and Pentium Silver CPUs.

The new chips come with 7W TDP ratings and 4MB of cache memory. The Core i5-L16G7 comes with a base speed of 1.4GHz across all cores with single-core and all-core boost speeds of 3GHz and 1.8GHz respectively. The Core i3-L13G4 runs at 800MHz with boost speeds of 2.8GHz and 1.3GHz respectively.

Expect the new chips to be first seen on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Book S which is expected to go on sale later this month. Lenovo has also announced its ThinkPad X1 Fold, will also make use of the new Lakefield chips and will launch the device later this year. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft makes use of these chips as the dual-screen Surface Neo was reportedly delayed.