Friday, December 20th 2024
Intel's "Wildcat Lake" Emerges as New Entry-Level Processor Series
According to recently discovered shipping manifests, Intel is developing a new processor series codenamed "Wildcat Lake," potentially succeeding their entry-level "Intel Processor" lineup based on Alder Lake-N. The documents, revealed by x86deadandback, suggest a 2025 launch timeline for these chips targeting lightweight laptops and mini-PCs. The shipping records from October 30 mention CPU reball equipment compatible with BGA 1516 sockets, measuring 35 x 25 mm, indicating early validation testing is underway. These processors are expected to be manufactured using Intel's advanced 18A process technology, sharing the same manufacturing node as the upcoming Panther Lake series. Early technical specifications of Wildcat Lake point to a hybrid architecture combining next-generation "Cougar Cove" performance cores with "Darkmont" low-power efficiency (LPE) cores in a 2P+4LPE configuration.
This design appears to separate the core clusters, departing from traditional shared ring bus arrangements, similar to the approach taken in Intel's Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors. While Wildcat Lake's exact position in Intel's product stack remains unclear, it could serve as a modernized replacement for the what were Pentium and Celeron processor families. These chips traditionally power devices like Chromebooks, embedded systems, and home servers, with the new series potentially offering significant performance improvements for these market segments. The processor is expected to operate in the sub-double-digit TDP power envelope, positioning it below the more powerful Lunar Lake series. Graphics capabilities will likely be more modest than Lunar Lake's Xe2 architecture, aligning with its entry-level market positioning.
Sources:
x86deadandback, via Tom's Hardware
This design appears to separate the core clusters, departing from traditional shared ring bus arrangements, similar to the approach taken in Intel's Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors. While Wildcat Lake's exact position in Intel's product stack remains unclear, it could serve as a modernized replacement for the what were Pentium and Celeron processor families. These chips traditionally power devices like Chromebooks, embedded systems, and home servers, with the new series potentially offering significant performance improvements for these market segments. The processor is expected to operate in the sub-double-digit TDP power envelope, positioning it below the more powerful Lunar Lake series. Graphics capabilities will likely be more modest than Lunar Lake's Xe2 architecture, aligning with its entry-level market positioning.
3 Comments on Intel's "Wildcat Lake" Emerges as New Entry-Level Processor Series
I have an i3-N305 running in an Odroid H4 Ultra that replaced my old Ryzen 1000 based home server setup at about 1/5th of the power draw. And another n100 as my Home Theather PC in the living room.
Hope that Wildcat Lake will be equally good for these workloads.
The ringbus point was different than what is mentioned here though. It is departing from shared ring bus arrangements like Lunar Lake but Arrow Lake does not do quite that. E-cores have been clustered with cluster still being a stop on ring bus since Alder Lake. What Lunar Lake (and now Wildcat Lake?) do differently is the LPE cores. These are on a different die and I cannot recall exactly how these were connected but not directly to ringbus. Not sure about Wildcat Lake about this though. It feels like all this would still end up on one die which would mean the clusters would end up on same ringbus.
Intel E-cores from the last couple generations are being seriously underestimated by people. These are more than enough to power an internet box or a home server.