Intel took a good part of 2021 to announce plans for its future, including a new IDM 2.0 strategy, new naming systems for process nodes, and new desktop GPUs.
And at its Architecture Day 2021 event, the company showed off how some of these changes will come together in new chipsets, starting with the upcoming Alder Lake lineup later this year.
And as the company has been teasing since last year's Architecture Day 2020 event, Alder Lake features the company's latest hybrid architecture.
Rather than offering the next generation of powerful CPU cores, it delivers a blend of x86 cores for performance and efficiency.
Additionally, Alder Lake is the first chip to be released via the newly renamed Intel 7 technology node.
Not to be confused with Intel 4, formerly known as the late Intel 7nm node. Which is supposed to be available to consumers sometime in 2023 under the codename Meteor Lake.
The Intel 7 still uses technology similar to the company's current 10nm technology, rather than the larger leap in manufacturing operations planned for Intel 4.
The new x86 performance core - codenamed Golden Cove - is the successor to the Willow Cove cores currently found in the company's 11th generation Tiger Lake processors.
The company claims it is the most powerful CPU core it has ever built. Meanwhile, the new x86 efficiency core (codenamed Gracemont) aims to be the world's most efficient x86 core, while still offering a higher IPC than Skylake chips.
In general, the performance core is similar to the core that appeared in Core processors. While the efficiency core is similar to the core that appeared in the Atom class processors.
Intel plans to combine the two cores in a hybrid architecture as a core product for its lineup starting with upcoming Alder Lake chips this fall.
The company previously experimented with introducing hybrid architectures with Lakefield chips last year.
The company has released a full range of chips from 9 watts to 125 watts that would use the new hybrid approach. Which combines advanced performance cores with efficient efficiency cores for a broader range of power when users need it and efficiency when running low-end tasks.
The company also teased several planned Alder Lake-based SoCs. That would take advantage of the new cores.
This includes a desktop SoC with eight performance and eight efficiency cores, onboard memory, graphics and output and input. With a portable SoC with six performance cores, eight efficiency and imaging cores, Thunderbolt 4 support, and more powerful memory, IO and graphics Xe onboard. Plus a highly load-focused SoC with two performance cores and eight efficiency cores.
The company also showcased its new scheduling technology, Thread Director. which are designed to better handle how the activity is allocated to performance or efficiency cores as needed.
Intel says it's working with Microsoft to ensure Thread Director is optimized for optimum performance across Windows 11.
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