Intel appears to be supplying 28W Ice Lake chips exclusively to Apple

Intel has removed the previously announced Core i7-1068G7, a 28W Ice Lake mobile processor, from its site. At the same time, the manufacturer has added two other 28W processors of the Ice Lake generation. It seems to be exclusive MacBook Pro chips.

Intel announced the 10nm Ice Lake-generation laptop processors last year, and the lineup’s most powerful chip was the Core i7-1068G7. Unlike the other Ice Lake U models, that processor did not have a configurable TDP of 15 to 25W, but a TDP of 28W. That processor never appeared in any laptop and has now completely disappeared from Intel’s product database.

Intel has added two new processors to that database. It concerns a Core i5 and a Core i7 with a TDP of 28W, with an N designation in the name next to the G7 designation, which indicates that the chips have an Iris Plus GPU with 64 execution units. The Core i7 is identical to the Core i7-1068G7; the only change is the N in the name.

The Core i5-1038NG7 and the Core i7-1068NG7 are the processors of the more expensive new MacBook Pro 13 models. The N designation seems to indicate that these are processors for Apple. The 2020 MacBook Air also contains N variants of existing chips: the Intel Core i3-1000NG4, Core i5-1030NG7 and Core i7-1060NG7.

The question is whether other manufacturers will still be able to use Ice Lake 28W processors. The Tiger Lake successors will appear halfway this year, which are made on an improved 10nm process and have a more powerful Xe GPU.