Armed with up to 8 "Golden Cove" high-performance CPU cores and up to 8 "Gracemont" low-power cores in a hybrid x86 processor setup, the "Alder Lake" silicon enables Intel to carve out some interesting SKUs in the mobile space, by creating numerous combinations of the big and small CPU core counts, and more importantly, by adjusting the ratio of big cores to small ones. The two core types operate at significantly different performance/Watt bands, which allows Intel to target the various TDP-defined mobile processor SKU categories with just the right big:small core ratios, as revealed by a leaked "Alder Lake" mobile SKU roadmap, leaked to the web by HXL.

Intel is looking to spread the silicon across six mobile segments defined by TDP—the 5 W tablet/handheld; the 9 W ultra-thin, the 15 W mainstream tablet/laptop, the 28 W performance tablet/laptop, the 35-45 W thin enthusiast laptop, and the 45-55 W "muscle" laptop. With Intel recently announcing the discontinuation of its 1+4 (big+small) core "Lakefield" hybrid processor, its mantle in the 5 W segment will be picked up by "Alder Lake-M5," with 1 "Golden Cove" and 4 "Gracemont" cores. There will be two product tiers segmented by iGPU execution units (EUs), one with 48 EU, and the other with 64.The constant with the "Alder Lake-U" 9 W ultra-thin segment is that these chips only have 2 "Golden Cove" cores, varying in the core-counts of the smaller "Gracemont" cores, and/or the iGPU EU count. The top 9 W models are 2+8 cores (big+small), while the lower models are 2+4 cores (big+small). The iGPU EU counts range between 80 and the maximum-possible 96. The CPU core-counts are similar with the 15 W "Alder Lake-U" chips, except that the increased TDP probably allows Intel to give them increased clock speeds and boosting headroom.

Things get very exciting with the 28 W segment, where we see SKUs that are only Core i5 or higher, with core counts starting at 4+8 cores (big+small) for the lower Core i5 and Core i7 parts; and 6+8 cores (big+small) for the top Core i9 parts. All SKUs in this segment max out the iGPU, with 96 EUs.

The 45 W segment, powering notebooks of conventional thickness, is where the processors have lavish amounts of power budgets, and can sustain high clock speeds. Here we see the Core i5 SKUs being 4+8 cores (big+small), while the Core i7 and Core i9 SKUs are 6+8 cores. The iGPUs are, again, maxed out with 96 EUs.

The 55 W enthusiast segment will include SKUs with unlocked multipliers and target premium gaming notebooks. Spanning Core i7 and Core i9 extensions, these SKUs come with 8+8 (big+small) CPU core configurations, but with only 32 iGPU EUs, to free up power budget for the CPU cores. The idea here is that gaming notebooks are sure to come with discrete GPUs, and the iGPU can afford to be made lightweight.

Depending on the TDP segment, these processors come in any of three packages. The smallest of these is BGA1781, which uses an extremely low Z-height package that's a multi-chip module of the processor die and the PCH, probably leveraging an advanced packaging technology like EMIB. The P-segment processors (15 W, 28 W, and 35-45 W) come in the BGA1744 package, with a lower pin-count, but a slightly bigger package that uses an interposer to connect the processor and PCH dies. The highest 55 W processor comes in the largest BGA1964 package, with additional pins possibly meant to serve increased power-delivery requirements, or a broader PCI-Express I/O.