Over the past 12 months, Intel has slowly started to disclose information about its first hybrid x86 platform, Lakefield. This new processor combines one ‘big’ CPU core with four ‘small’ CPU cores, along with a hefty chunk of graphics, with Intel setting out to deliver a new computing form factor. Highlights for this processor include its small footprint, due to new 3D stacking ‘Foveros’ technology, as well as its low standby SoC power, as low as 2.5 mW, which Intel states is 91% lower than previous low power Intel processors.
This is Intel’s latest attempt to take on ARM in very thin laptops and tablets and other low-power devices.
Not even enough power to cook my pop-corn, d’oh.
That went well for them last time, and the time before that…. I can’t see anything changing in a hurry.
Mind you, interesting concept, and i hope it makes it’s way to desktop processors as well.
Intel used to have an ARM license (remember StrongARM/XScale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrongARM ?). However they let it go for their own Atom architecture.
Atom had potential, but never completely scaled down. Like Microsoft trying to put a mini-desktop design on their mobile operating systems, Intel also wanted to have mini versions of x86 on the mobile chips. In hindsight we understand it would have never worked, at that time they though they had a chance.
I actually had an ASUS tablet with Atom processor on it (Android not Windows). And it was okay. But missing on ARM also meant missing on other SoC package contents (like a better GPU/Wifi). And ASUS stopped producing in that market.
There were of course Atom based Windows machines, but nobody uses them anymore. Even Microsoft is switching to x86 emulation or ARM for their ultra mobile hardware.
So there is a lot of bad history. I am sure there are excellent engineers working at Intel (I have several friends there). But success also requires high level product vision. I actually hope they stay competitive and bring something viable to the market.
sukru,
We may have had the same one! “Okay” is about how I would describe it too, haha.
Given that android software runs on byte-code, the underlying architecture doesn’t really matter that much. The scenario is quite a bit different from native code as you can avoid CPU emulation entirely.
My experience was very different. A lot depends on use case.
I had two home servers that were Atom (D525 and now N3700.) For this application, Atom is wonderful – x86 means you can install any random Linux distribution without thinking about it, and can run small VMs pretty easily too, without the power draw/noise/heat of a full scale machine.
I also bought a cheap laptop with an N3060, in the hope that it was so cheap that I can take it anywhere and if it’s lost or damaged, no drama. There was a lot of work setting it up, because with only two cores it’s essential that all noisy background activity is either fully removed or set up to run at controlled times. But having done that, the result is a fanless laptop with insanely good battery life, where I can just take it on vacation and leave the power supply at home. My main use case is compiling C code from a command line, so I don’t need a beefy GPU, and it turns out compiling C is a relatively cheap task these days (remember how much JS most people compile every day.) But it’s still a PC that runs anything, including VMs, for testing that code.
The big problem though is having bought a device that I don’t mind losing, it’s now too useful to me to want to lose. The current model of that laptop ships with AMD which completely invalidates the reasons for wanting it.
Obviously Intel didn’t succeed with phones, where x86 compatibility is not a selling point. But in servers or PCs, it’s still a great feature.
The Atom server CPU line has a different architecture. I still have one (C series), and it has many features not available in lower end Core processors (like ECC RAM and virtualization support):
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/codename/60191/rangeley.html. It makes a very good NAS setup.
For laptops, the modern Core i7 has fanless versions. They consume about 10W and provide excellent performance. I have one thru work, and it is really snappy.
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/22166-amber-lake-laptops/
The older mobile Atom design is pretty much a dead end at this moment.
“Intel used to have an ARM license […] they let it go for their own Atom architecture.”
They keep producing and selling ARM chips, so I suppose their license is still valid.
I think that’s primarily as a fab, not actually designing their chips. They might have a fabrication license, but they sure as hell can’t design their own.
“but they sure as hell can’t design their own”
They are integrating ARM cores in their own SoCs, not casting chips for 3rd parties.
Like almost everyone else are converging on reference implementations maybe because it’s not paying out developing your own architecture (Apple being the most notable exception).
But they don’t have an ARM license. How can they make ARM processors?
> But they don’t have an ARM license. How can they make ARM processors?
Who said they don’t have a license?
I would call Lakefield “hybrid asymmetric”. The idea of tiny vegan cores that tun the OS, I/O etc. and a giant carnivorous batch mode “mainframe” CPU that mostly sleeps is very interesting, if the OS / compilers can handle it. The big core should have it’s own cache. Probably conflating low power with high power strategies here.
It’s really not that interesting…. everybody else already does it.
Its just a normal desktop core + a low power helper core so you don’t have to wake up the big core except when the user interacts with the system, all background tasks can just be scheduled to the helper core when running in low power mode. Separate cache is probably not helpful since when waking up the big core’s cache would be stale. In low power mode they’d probably just run the regular cache slower just enough to feed the slow low powrer core.
This also means you don’t even have to bother trying to make your big core run at low power at all… since any lower power tasks will be on the dedicated low power core, just turn the whole thing off. AMD takes a different strategy and makes their cores pervasively power gated so any inactive silicon isn’t drawing power.