Latest news with #MichelleHolthaus
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
TSMC's N2 process reportedly lands orders from Intel — Nova Lake is the likely application
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Intel has reportedly placed orders with TSMC for its bleeding-edge 2nm-class N2 process technology, according to Economic Daily News. This news comes shortly after AMD officially confirmed its Zen 6 'Venice' server chips, likely the CCDs, will be fabricated using the same node. If the report is accurate, these wafers are likely intended for Intel's Nova Lake lineup of CPUs. While this might put into question 18A's capabilities, Intel officially declared a dual-sourcing strategy for Nova Lake as early as last Lake serves as the successor to Arrow Lake, and is rumored to feature up to 52 hybrid cores (16P+32E+4LPE) segmented into two blocks of eight Coyote Cove P-cores, 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, with four LPE cores likely in a separate SoC Tile. Rumor has it that Nova Lake will transition to a new LGA1954 socket, meaning existing 800-series motherboards won't be are seeing several architectural jumps here as the expected progression is Lion Cove (ARL/LNL), then Cougar Cove, and Coyote Cove for Performance (P) cores. Similarly, Arctic Wolf is suggested to follow Darkmont, which comes after Skymont (ARL/LNL) for Efficiency (E) cores. With 18A already in risk production, the shift to TSMC is probably driven by capacity needs, rather than performance or yield 18A should power some of Intel's most ambitious products in recent history: Clearwater Forest and Diamond Rapids (rumored), the former of which has been delayed to H1 2026 citing packaging concerns. To ease pressure on its 18A production line and prevent delays with consumer products, Intel, under interim CEO Michelle Holthaus, announced outsourcing some Nova Lake dies to partners like TSMC and insinuated by leaker Kepler on X, high-end Nova Lake products will, allegedly, be built using N2 while 18A will be designated for the lower-end parts. This isn't Intel's first time partnering up with TSMC for CPU production, as the company's latest Arrow Lake CPUs (using N3B, N5P, and N6), Lunar Lake (using N3B and N6), and for GPUs Alchemist (using N6), and Battlemage(using N4) have all leveraged TSMC's process technology. This increases Intel's spending, requiring a careful balance between expediting product launches via external foundries or facing delays with its internal some extent, even Arrow Lake is dual-sourced with Arrow Lake-U (for low-power devices) using the Intel 3 process. While Arrow Lake had minimal in-house production, ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger reported that Intel will produce most of Nova Lake internally. Relying on TSMC isn't inherently bad if 18A can land a handful of external customers. Analysts have also suggested Nvidia might be eyeing Intel's nodes for its consumer GPUs in the future. Either way, Nova Lake is slated to be a 2026 product, so we're likely looking at the second half with how Intel launches usually proceed.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Intel's Nova Lake CPU reportedly has up to 52 cores — Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores onboard
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Intel's next-generation desktop CPU family, codenamed Nova Lake, is officially slated for a 2026 launch. Renowned leaker Jaykihn has weighed in at X, alleging Nova Lake could scale up to 52 cores. Before you get excited, be aware that these are preliminary silicon configurations that could be canceled later. As a reminder, we saw similar rumors of a 40-core (8P + 32E) Arrow Lake chip, which likely did exist but never saw the light of day. Nonetheless, the leaker alleges Nova Lake will employ the Coyote Cove and Arctic Wolf architectures for its P-cores and E-cores, respectively. Shipping manifests from NBD suggest that Nova Lake test chips are currently in the hands of developers, which is expected since these CPUs are set to launch next year. Intel's co-CEO, Michelle Holthaus, asserted that some parts of Nova Lake will be built at external foundries (TSMC, Samsung), though most will remain in-house. Jaykihn has listed three Nova Lake configurations that Intel is reportedly considering at the moment: 52 cores (16P + 32E + 4LPE), 28 cores (8P + 16E + 4LPE), and 16 cores (4P + 8E + 4LPE). The initial claim portrays the 52-core SKU as a dual 8P+16E design with four LPE cores (likely on the SoC Tile). Intel could adopt a dual-CCX-like design with a dedicated L3 cache for each 8P+16E pair, though a large, unified pool of L3 cache is also possible. The leaker suggests that the 52-core die is potentially designated for both desktops and laptops as an HX-grade SKU, but the claim isn't strongly asserted since all of this data is preliminary. The tipster claims that Nova Lake will adopt Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores for its architecture. It is speculated that Coyote Cove is the second successor to Lion Cove (Arrow Lake/Lunar Lake), following Cougar Cove (Panther Lake). On the E-core side, Skymont is rumored to be superseded by Darkmont, followed by Arctic Wolf. Adding to the mix, Jaykihn mentions a Nova Lake SKU with a 144MB L3 cache-equipped compute tile, suggesting its existence but not offering further details. Such exotic designs rarely see the light of day, so we highly recommend you take this leak with a grain of salt. Despite Nova Lake purportedly sticking with an off-die memory controller, rumors exist that Intel may have optimizations in place to minimize the latency penalty.
