Wednesday, January 29th 2020
Intel Core i5-L16G7 is the first "Lakefield" SKU Appearance, Possible Prelude to New Nomenclature?
Intel Core i5-L16G7 is the first commercial SKU that implements Intel's "Lakefield" heterogenous x86 processor architecture. This 5-core chip features one high-performance "Sunny Cove" CPU core, and four smaller "Tremont" low-power cores, with an intelligent scheduler balancing workloads between the two core types. This is essentially similar to ARM big.LITTLE. The idea being that the device idles most of the time, when lower-powered CPU cores can hold the fort; performance cores kick in only when really needed, until which time they remain power-gated. Thai PC enthusiast TUM_APISAK discovered the first public appearance of the i5-L16G7 in an unreleased Samsung device that has the Userbenchmark device ID string "SAMSUNG_NP_767XCL."
Clock speeds of the processor are listed as "1.40 GHz base, with 1.75 GHz turbo," but it's possible that the two core types have different clock-speed bands, just like the cores on big.LITTLE SoCs. Other key components of "Lakefield" include an iGPU based on the Gen11 graphics architecture, and an LPDDR4X memory controller. "Lakefield" implements Foveros packaging, in which high-density component dies based on newer silicon fabrication nodes are integrated with silicon interposers based on older fabrication processes, which facilitate microscopic high-density wiring between the dies. In case of "Lakefield," the Foveros package features a 10 nm "compute field" die sitting atop a 22 nm "base field" interposer.
Intel's nomenclature for the Core i5-L16G7 is fascinating. It condenses Intel's lengthy "i9-10980XE" (7-character) model names down to 5, besides the main brand extension (i3, i5, i7, i9). The first character probably represents the product type, followed by a numerical model number, further followed by "G" denoting the presence of integrated graphics, and a numeral next to "G" denoting its tier. Here's hoping this nomenclature holds, because Intel now has three: the 10th gen "Comet Lake" mobile processors retain the classic nomenclature (eg: Core i7-10710U), while the 10th gen "Ice Lake" has a slightly improved nomenclature (eg: Core i7-1065G7), and now "Lakefield" brings in the shortest of the three (eg: Core i5-L16G7).
Source:
TUM_APISAK (Twitter)
Clock speeds of the processor are listed as "1.40 GHz base, with 1.75 GHz turbo," but it's possible that the two core types have different clock-speed bands, just like the cores on big.LITTLE SoCs. Other key components of "Lakefield" include an iGPU based on the Gen11 graphics architecture, and an LPDDR4X memory controller. "Lakefield" implements Foveros packaging, in which high-density component dies based on newer silicon fabrication nodes are integrated with silicon interposers based on older fabrication processes, which facilitate microscopic high-density wiring between the dies. In case of "Lakefield," the Foveros package features a 10 nm "compute field" die sitting atop a 22 nm "base field" interposer.
33 Comments on Intel Core i5-L16G7 is the first "Lakefield" SKU Appearance, Possible Prelude to New Nomenclature?
Unfortunately big.LITTLE doesn't work like that. You can have either the big or the little core active, but not both at once. Of course, Intel doesn't have to copy what ARM did verbatim, but there's a TDP issue trying to run both cores at the same time.
It's already working well in the Windows 10 ARM. So it's not like they can't or are against the idea.
Also, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by Windows being inefficient. You mean that some exotic CPU architectures aren't properly designed for the OS that has 80% PC market share? It's not Microsoft's fault, is it? :D
If the industry had worked on this argument then, we'd still not have multitasking.
Le: