TSMC Begins 3 nm Production for Intel's "Lunar Lake" and "Arrow Lake" Tiles

[btarunr]

TSMC has commenced mass-production of chips for Intel on its 3 nm EUV FinFET foundry node, according to a report by Taiwan industry observer DigiTimes. Intel is using the TSMC 3 nm node for the compute tile of its upcoming Core Ultra 300 "Lunar Lake" processor. The company went into depth about "Lunar Lake" in its Computex 2024 presentation. While a disaggregated chiplet-based processor like "Meteor Lake," the new "Lunar Lake" chip sees the CPU cores, iGPU, NPU, and memory controllers sit on a single chiplet called the compute tile, built on the 3 nm node; while the SoC and I/O components are disaggregated the chip's only other chiplet, the SoC tile, which is built on the TSMC 6 nm node.

Intel hasn't gone into the nuts and bolts of "Arrow Lake," besides mentioning that the processor will feature the same "Lion Cove" P-cores and "Skymont" E-cores as "Lunar Lake," albeit arranged in a more familiar ringbus configuration, where the E-core clusters share L3 cache with the P-cores (something that doesn't happen on "Lunar Lake"). "Arrow Lake" also features a iGPU based on the same Xe2 graphics architecture as "Lunar Lake," and will feature an NPU that meets Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC requirements. What remains a mystery about "Arrow Lake" is the way Intel will go about organizing the various chiplets or tiles. Reports from February 2024 mentioned Intel tapping into TSMC 3 nm for just the disaggregated graphics tile of "Arrow Lake," but we now know from "Lunar Lake" that Intel doesn't shy away from letting TSMC fabricate its CPU cores. The first notebooks powered by "Lunar Lake" are expected to hit shelves within Q3-2024, with "Arrow Lake" following on in Q4.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[nguyen]

Man Intel goes straight for the kill this gen, would love to see 14900K + 15% IPC uplift at 1/3 the power consumption

 

[phints]

Man Intel goes straight for the kill this gen, would love to see 14900K + 15% IPC uplift at 1/3 the power consumption

That would be great as I'm planning a new build this winter. Right now thinking Ryzen 9700X, but will welcome competition from Intel if they can pull this off for the Core i7-15700K (or whatever it's called) could be in my future. Would need to be a massive reduction in power with similar or higher performance though as I personally have zero interest in a 250W CPU. If they are finally moving away from their ancient lithography to Intel 20A / TSMC 3N then maybe.

As an aside, why is TPU still writing this as 3 nm? We know it's nowhere near 3nm (what is it 20nm?) and that's why even TSMC gave it another name like N3 or similar, like Intel does now too.

 

[pressing on]

As an aside, why is TPU still writing this as 3 nm? We know it's nowhere near 3nm (what is it 20nm?) and that's why even TSMC gave it another name like N3 or similar, like Intel does now too.

The IEEE definition of 3 nm calls for a metal pitch of no more than 24 nanometers which I think is the number you're referring to. TSMC meets this spec with its 3 nm node. That aside Intel 20A was a maybe for the Lunar Lake CPU complex and that didn't happen. With Arrow Lake 20A seemed to be more definite but it may well be TSMC 3 nm.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Man Intel goes straight for the kill this gen, would love to see 14900K + 15% IPC uplift at 1/3 the power consumption

Arrow Lake will use about 30-40% less power according to some leaks. You'll need to wait for Panther Lake IMO.

 

[nguyen]

Arrow Lake will use about 30-40% less power according to some leaks. You'll need to wait for Panther Lake IMO.

10000+ MT DDR5 on CAMM2 would be very interesting for Intel 15th gen too, maybe waiting for Panther Lake with matured techs would be wise.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Arrow Lake does not get Xe2, sticking with Xe but getting Xe Plus based on tweaked Alchemist.