Tag: Intels

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Intel’s Core i is dead, long live Core Ultra


Intel calls it “a new brand for a new era”: after 15 years, the manufacturer is giving up the iconic designation Core i – new processors from the Meteor Lake generation are no longer called Core i7-14700H (fictitious name), but come as Core Ultra 5/7/9 or Core 3/5/7/9, without i in the name. The company has now confirmed previous rumours.

In the future, Core Ultra will be called the “most advanced client processors” from the premium segment. “Mainstream offerings” forego the Ultra. Notebooks with the Meteor Lake CPU generation will make a start next fall: the fastest models will appear as Core Ultra. With a chiplet structure and an integrated AI accelerator, Intel sees a change in its own processors. AMD also highlights the in-house “Ryzen AI” accelerators in the current mobile processors.

New logos for Intel’s processors, which you will find on notebooks starting in the fall.

For desktop PCs, this change is not expected until 2024. Only a new edition of the previous Core i-13000 CPUs with higher clock frequencies is to be released this year – according to our information under the name Core i-14000. The top desktop model this year would therefore still be called the Core i9-14900K.

Core i – Intel’s core brand since 2008

Intel presented the first Core i processors in November 2008: the Core i7-920, Core i7-940 and Core i7-965 XE as Extreme Edition, all from the Bloomfield family with four Nehalem computing cores. The processors replaced the Front Side Bus (FSB) with the Quick Path Interconnect (QPI), and the memory controller also migrated from the chipset Northbridge to the CPU. The CPUs on LGA1366 mainboards provided three DDR3 memory channels – a maximum of 24 GB of RAM could be used.

A second change concerns the generation designations. So far, Intel has consistently spoken of the umpteenth Core i generation, most recently of the 13th. From the next presentation, that will no longer happen: only the CPU names should refer to the generation, but it will no longer be explicitly so pronounced.

At the latest since the many rehashes of the Skylake architecture with numerous new editions, commonly also called refreshes, – from the Core i-6000 to Core i-10000 – this counting method has become obsolete.

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New naming scheme: Intel’s Core processors lose the i and become Ultra


There have already been signs, now Intel is making it official: The company is changing the naming scheme of its desktop and notebook processors. 15 years ago, Intel switched to the well-known Core iX scheme – now the i is gone. In addition, Intel will no longer indicate the generation, so instead of a 14th Gen Core i9 there will be a Core 9 in the future.

The four to five-digit product number, which continues to contain the reference to the processor generation in the first place, is retained. The partly attached letters also remain with the usual meaning. However, the product numbers will be reset: the new naming scheme will be introduced with the Meteor Lake processors expected in late 2023, their product numbers will start with 1.

In a first statement in May via Twitter, company spokesman Bernard Fernandes justified the change by saying that Intel was at a turning point: At Meteor Lake, Intel used chiplets for the first time, some from its own 4 nm production and some from TSMC. Now it is said that the new naming scheme should make the most powerful processors easier to identify for customers.

In addition, the processors will be divided into two product lines in the future: In addition to the normal core processors, there will be core ultra processors. Intel has not yet announced what distinguishes an ultra processor from a model without this addition. Two options are obvious: the simple core processors could lack performance cores or the AI ​​accelerator. The latter will be installed for the first time in Meteor Lake, all processors in this family and in the successor Arrow Lake are said to be Core Ultras.

Lots of new stickers

The new naming scheme also means new decals for the case. A device has the appropriate Core or Core Ultra sticker, if the remote maintenance extension vPro is available or a notebook is certified by Intel Evo, there are adapted variants. So far it seems as if, unlike before, the performance class is no longer specified for these. If a dedicated Arc graphics card is installed – Intel emphasized that this is possible with both Core and Core Ultra processors – there is another sticker on the case for it.

Should processors come onto the market before Meteor Lake – none have been announced so far – they would continue to use the old naming scheme, according to Intel. This explicit hint suggests that there could still be a Raptor Lake refresh.

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Intel’s plan against an unattainable TSMC: beat Samsung and consolidate itself as the second largest chip manufacturer


Just 24 hours ago we participated in the annual meeting in which those responsible for Intel in Spain take stock of their business during the year that we have left behind, and also share with the invited journalists your forecasts for the new year. This event has been led by Norberto Mateos, consumer director for the EMEA area and general director of Intel Spain, and one of his statements seemed juicy enough to analyze in this article.

According to Norberto, Intel intends to consolidate itself as the second largest semiconductor manufacturer in the global market. At first glance it may seem that this phrase does not say much, but nothing could be further from the truth. It says a lot. And he says it because it makes something important official: the distance that the Taiwanese company TSMC, which is the largest manufacturer of integrated circuits on the planet, maintains over its two most advantaged competitors, who are none other than Intel and Samsung, is insurmountable in the short and medium term. term.

And at this juncture, Intel has set its eyes on Samsung. Currently, TSMC’s global market share is slightly over 50%, while that of Intel and Samsung ranges from 17 to 20% for both companies. It is clear that a realistic plan requires paying attention to the nearest competitor and taking the necessary steps to distance yourself from it and overcome it. This is precisely what Intel plans to do with Samsung. And the IDM 2.0 strategy () that Pat Gelsinger launched shortly after becoming the general management of this company in February 2021 is everything in this purpose.

IDM 2.0 aims to increase Intel’s competitiveness and reinforce synergies

The steps that this company has taken under the leadership of Gelsinger during the last three years do not only aspire to respond to the needs of Intel itself in the field of semiconductor manufacturing; They also seek to expand their client portfolio and position this company as one of the largest producers of integrated circuits for third parties. The chip manufacturing plant infrastructure that Intel had in 2021 was not sufficient to materialize this double objective, so Gelsinger took the only possible path.

Over the next few years, Intel will invest at least $80 billion in the development of several chip factories.

Intel is making multibillion-dollar investments to expand and strengthen its network of semiconductor manufacturing, packaging, assembly and verification plants. The two factories that it is currently setting up in Arizona (United States) will cost it 20 billion dollars, but this is far from all. It is also building a $25 billion chip factory in Kiryat Gat, Israel; prepares the launch of a 30 billion dollar plant in Magdeburg (Germany); will invest 4.6 billion dollars in new facilities that will be located in Wrocław (Poland), and, finally, it will spend 13 billion more dollars on the expansion of its factory in Leixlip (Ireland).

Intel will not assume 100% of these investments because it will receive juicy subsidies from the governments of the countries involved. Even so, his bet is intimidating from an economic point of view. However, its recipe has one more ingredient that we have not yet investigated: the synergy it maintains with TSMC. Yes, these two companies compete in the field of semiconductor manufacturing, and they will do so even more intensely in the future, but they are also allies.

TSMC also makes chips for Intel. It has been doing this for many years, and this relationship of complicity will endure in the future as an important part of the IDM 2.0 strategy. What’s more, analysts at the financial services company Goldman Sachs argue that Intel will strengthen its relationship with TSMC in the short term referring to this Taiwanese company the manufacturing of part of its semiconductors. According to these technicians, in 2024 Intel will buy chips worth $5.6 billion from TSMC, and in 2025 this figure will increase to $9.7 billion.

We still have to focus on the last major pillar of Intel’s strategy to beat Samsung and consolidate itself as the second largest chip manufacturer on the planet: its intention to develop 5 nodes in just 4 years. At the moment it is on the right track. Several of its plants, including the one in Ireland, are already manufacturing chips with Intel 4 lithography on a large scale. And Norberto Mateos has confirmed to us that nodes 20A and 18A will go into production this year with the purpose of being ready for circuit manufacturing. integrated on a large scale in 2025. Be that as it may, we can be sure of one thing: the competition between TSMC, Intel and Samsung will reach unprecedented ferocity in 2024 and 2025.

Cover image: Intel