Intel's Architecture Day 2018: The Future of Core, Intel GPUs, 10nm, and Hybrid x86
by Dr. Ian Cutress on December 12, 2018 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Memory
- Intel
- GPUs
- DRAM
- Architecture
- Microarchitecture
- Xe
Ice Lake 10nm Xeon Scalable On Display
One of the more sedate talks at the event was discussing Intel’s approach in the datacenter. We’ve covered this story in detail, especially at Intel’s Data-Centric Summit only a few months ago. Intel has stated that Cascade Lake and Cooper Lake are the next two products for the enterprise market, both built on 14nm, focusing on enhanced security as well as AI instructions to help with acceleration. We also know that after these two Intel will have Ice Lake Scalable built on 10nm, but that’s about it.
To be honest, we don’t actually know much more than what we did back then. Intel confirmed that Ice Lake will be built using Sunny Cove cores. But Intel also showed off what they said was an Ice Lake Xeon 10nm processor and package, as shown in the image above.
Color me skeptical, but what was held up is likely either not ICL-SP or just silicon that doesn’t work. In order to make those products, Intel would have to have pumped out at least one large (350mm2+?) die that worked and then put it into a package with a heatspreader. Intel finally seems to be happy discussing a few products on 10nm, as shown at this event, but all the 10nm hardware is based on tiny 100mm2 or smaller silicon. Given Intel’s documented problems, I would have loved that CPU that was held up in the air to be Ice Lake-SP. But I’ll need to see something more concrete to believe it at this point; it’s too much of a jump.
Ending Intel’s Architecture Day
As I’m writing this, it is 3am PT and only a couple of hours away from Intel’s listed embargo time. The event finished 10 hours ago (a few of us skipped the end event drinks to get to writing) and despite the short time to write it all up, it was a good event overall. For the first time in a good while, Intel decided to talk shop, and in an honest way with very little hand waving. One could argue that in every discussion point, Intel raised more questions than they answered, but the positive here is that questions are being answered, and Intel is willing to share things like roadmaps into 2021, demonstrations of some exciting new products for 2019/2020, and a taste of how they are progressing in both manufacturing and microarchitecture. Hopefully Intel will feel the same and this can become a yearly cadence. The trio of Keller, Koduri, and Murthy, is a strong team to field to the press, and this event fits that bill.
To end this piece, I’m going to put in the Q&A section from day’s presentations, as well as some of the questions put in my particular round-table. It’s an interesting read, and it helps that Jim is full of memorable quotes.
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StrainedDig4 - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link
I cannot read a thing when the text is partially blocked by a video Ad. I will simply read elsewhere. They need add dollars and that is more important than my reading their article, obviously. Thanks for your input.davidefreeman - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
I've never had that problem before, and I keep ads unblocked on Anandtech to support them. Did you try refreshing the page?FunBunny2 - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
"Without ads, you don't get to read the content for pleasure, and then it all is a moot point, now isn't it."the 'advert business model' is a crock and scam. always has been. at least in print media, everyone who 'clicks' on the newspaper or magazine has to pass over, at least, the advert. with the innterTubes, the adverts not only steal more and more of the screen, but definitely slow down the process.
and here's what the proponents of the advert business model keep denying: those that block adverts won't interact with them at all. neither the page owner nor the advert buyer actually lose a 'real' customer. the page owners are scamming the advert buyers with 'eyeballs' metric. it means nothing but the buyers are too stupid, or scared, to insist on metrics that measure actual $$$ they earn from clicks. the page owners won't do that because it will reveal that innterTube adverts are of negative infinity value.
FunBunny2 - Thursday, December 13, 2018 - link
I wonder how much longer the 'if we build it, they will buy' mantra works? do all those cube dwellers in MegaCorpUSA play high requirement games all day long?tommybobberson - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
could someone tell me what they mean by IP in the first qna question please?ajc9988 - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
IP = Intellectual Property. This covers Patents, Copyright, Trademarks, and potentially trade secrets (this is things like processes, etc., that they cannot receive other protections for or that they choose not to patent because there is a time clock after which it falls into public domain, so keeping it secret can potentially allow for longer protection periods).THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU NEED LEGAL ADVICE, PLEASE SEEK THE ADVICE OF COUNSEL WITHIN YOUR JURISDICTION. THIS IS GENERAL LEGAL INFORMATION, IS PRESENTED AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS.
tommybobberson - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
Also, could i know what embargo they were talking about in the second last slide?ajc9988 - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
The slide is just marked as under embargo until the contractual embargo of information is lifted. During the presentation, there was an embargo that lifted like hours or a day after the conference. Nothing to really be concerned about.tommybobberson - Friday, December 14, 2018 - link
oh i see, thanks for the reply. though I was hoping it would be something about their products :Pwatersb - Saturday, December 15, 2018 - link
Great work, lots of info. Thanks very much!