Intel debuts 14nm+ processors

Intel Corp. has officially announced Kaby Lake, its seventh-generation Core PC processors made in a 14nm+ process and focused on delivering better 4K video. The family provides the first indication of what more modest product advances may look like as Intel stretches Moore's Law to cover with one process node multiple generations of chips.

Kaby Lake processors gain a 12 percent improvement from enhancements to Intel's 14nm process. They also include a modestly updated media engine with hardware support for decoding VP9 video and encoding and decoding 4K 10-bit HEVC video. Otherwise, the chips use the same architecture as the previous Skylake generation, including the existing Skylake x86 pipeline.

The new generation is the first to break Intel's tick-tock cadence of alternating between a new process node and a new microarchitecture every year. With the increasing complexity and costs of pursuing Moore's Law and a slowing PC market, Intel decided to stretch one process generation across three years and three families of chips.

The 14+nm process delivers transistor-level enhancements such as taller fins and improved gate pitch, interconnect speed and aspect ratio to deliver 12 percent better performance. At its recent Intel Developer Forum, the company disclosed plans to make product families in three generations of its emerging 10nm process.

To read the full article, go to EE Times.