Intel details Intel 4 chip process and shows Meteor Lake image

According to Intel, its upcoming Intel 4-chip process will enable 21.5 percent higher processor clock speeds at constant TDPs. Intel 4 is the company’s first chip node where Intel deploys EUV chip machines. Intel showed a dieshot of a Meteor Lake chip.

Intel 4 enables 21.5 percent higher clock speeds at the same tdp, a 40 percent lower power consumption at the same clock speeds, or a combination thereof, Intel reported during the IEEE VLSI Symposium 2022. Tom’s Hardware writes about the presentation. Intel compares Intel 4 to the company’s current chip node, Intel 7, which is used for Alder Lake, among other things.

Intel 4 is the chip process the company previously referred to as 7nm, with Intel 7 being the 10nm node. The company makes extensive use of EUV chip machines for production, requiring fewer time-consuming process steps and expensive exposure masks. Intel speaks of 2x scaling with regard to the high performance library, which means that with Intel 4 the company manages to place twice as many transistors on a surface as with Intel 7 in the high performance chip structures.

The first processor generation based on Intel 4 will be Meteor Lake. It should appear in 2023. Intel revealed that it produced working processors in the second quarter. Intel uses the Foveros 3D technology for packaging at Meteor Lake. This enables the company to place various ’tiles’ or chiplets on an interposer, connected via silicon via channels. These are tiles for compute, graphics, I/O and soc.

Intel showed a dieshot of the compute tile, showing that Meteor Lake consists of six powerful p-cores, codenamed Redwood Cove, and two clusters of four low-power e-cores each, the Crestmont cores. Foveros 3D enables Intel to make the different parts using different processes, or have them made. In any case, the compute part makes the company on the Intel 4 node.