Intel's upcoming Lunar Lake architecture is expected to be the low-power successor to its current Meteor Lake platform for the mobile device market. The Lunar Lake architecture is expected to be used in ultra-portable laptops, handhelds, tablets and other similar hardware products later this year.
The recent first exposure of the Lunar Lake architecture shows that Intel has made some breakthroughs with this new architecture, marking an important new step in chip design for the company. The Lunar Lake architecture represents a very different kind of technological innovation compared to previous products and signals Intel's further expansion and deepening of its presence in the low-power processor market.
Intel's Lunar Lake chip family will use TSMC's 3nm process to manufacture its computing modules, a decision that marks a significant shift in Intel's chip manufacturing strategy. Not only is this the first time Intel has delegated chip production to longtime rival TSMC, it also shows the company's flexibility and adaptability in the face of market and technological challenges.
In the past, Intel has been manufacturing its own CPUs, but as the industry moves into a slice-based design philosophy, Intel has begun to adopt this new model as well. Even so, for the current Meteor Lake platform, Intel will still manufacture compute slices in its own facilities.
Regarding the future lineup, there is news that Intel is planning to apply its own 18A process technology to its architectures. However, this process may not be ready until later this year when Lunar Lake chips are expected to ship. As for the desktop version of Arrow Lake, it's uncertain whether it will utilize Intel's 20A process and whether its compute modules will be manufactured in-house by Intel or continue to be made by TSMC. The latest report suggests that Intel is working closely with Microsoft to optimize the Lunar Lake chips specifically for Windows. While the description in the report uses technical language like "optimizing hardware and software interactions," it sounds like it involves the use of artificial intelligence technology. While the content of the report may simply mean "making Windows run smoother" to most people, we're almost certain that this Intel-Microsoft collaboration involves some aspect of AI. It's worth noting that Intel has removed the I/O chip from Lunar Lake, which is expected to launch in late 2024.
Additionally, the report mentions that the Lunar Lake chip's integrated graphics (iGPU) will be based on Intel's Battlemage chip, which is part of Intel's second-generation Arc graphics. According to Igor, who saw the iGPU in an "internal test" slide, the iGPU is so powerful that it's expected to be able to deliver up to twice the performance of its predecessor, the Alchemist series, which is certainly good news for thin and light packaged devices. The iGPU is said to feature eight Xe2 cores, the same class as the entry-level discrete GPUs in the Alchemist series.
