
Intel's First 10nm Cannon Lake CPU Confirmed - john58
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2018/05/16/intels-first-10nm-cannon-lake-cpu-confirmed/#1736391255a7
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stewartbutler
> Interestingly, there doesn't appear to be evidence that the CPU includes an
> integrated graphics processor - something that's listed in detail on the
> product page of the Coffee Lake-based Core i3-8109U. This could simply be
> down to the fact that Intel does not wish to reveal details of the onboard
> graphics of Cannon Lake CPUs at this time, or it's decided to cut the
> feature out of certain product ranges in favor of using separate graphics
> cards.

I wonder if they may have cut onboard graphics to increase yield by lowering
the bar for a QA pass in the lower product ranges. If they are having process
difficulties at 10nm, that would allow them to push some of what would
normally be rejected to market.

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Nokinside
This seems like the most likely case.

If the GPU part has a failure, you can disable it and rescue the CPU. If the
CPU has a failure you might rescue GPU. Pairing failed GPU-CPU's together for
cheaper products and selling fully functional ones for the top of the line
products makes sense.

The same happens with multi core ships and even with failed caches. Just
disable them and sell them as low end chips.

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monocasa
Or they knew that they were going to have yield issues, and these dies don't
even have a GPU in the first place rather than binning them after the fact.

~~~
Nokinside
The solution they pick is typical linear programming problem using die size,
yield and price of different options after disabling failed areas.

~~~
monocasa
They also layout with some understanding of the yield (yield is almost
entirely a function of die area at a given node). So if they decide to just
entirely bin off the GPU, and they know this ahead of time enough, it makes
more sense to not have a GPU in the first place. The GPU is about half the die
area, so you would get better yield by just not having it at all (but all of
this depends on having enough lead time to decide this before layout).

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voxadam
There's a _tiny_ bit more information in the recent short article about this
CPU at WikiChip.[1]

[1] [https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/1285/intel-launches-cannon-
la...](https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/1285/intel-launches-cannon-lake/)

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jshap70
"confirmed" seems a little strong for them pointing to a single article in
German citing an un-sourced ad in Chinese...

~~~
voxadam
Check out ark.intel.com for confirmation.

[https://ark.intel.com/products/136863/Intel-
Core-i3-8121U-Pr...](https://ark.intel.com/products/136863/Intel-
Core-i3-8121U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz?q=8121U)

~~~
redcalx
I did not expect to see AVX-512 support for a Core i3.

~~~
striking
They need to drive up adoption somehow, right?

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eutropia
This is a dual-core 2.2GHz processor at a TDP of 15 Watts, how does it compare
to modern ARM mobile processors?

~~~
deaddodo
The _highest_ ARM TDP available now is 2w from the Cortex-A75. That's 7.5x as
efficient.

The current Intel 8109u scores about 2x the IPC of the A75 (the main core in
the Snapdragon 845). So assuming a generous increase of 15%, the same story as
the last 5ish years. ARM is much more efficient; but Intel has more total
processing power (especially in the higher power envelopes).

~~~
mrob
That's 1/7.5x the TDP, not 7.5x as efficient. Efficiency is measured in units
like requests served per joule. ARM processors typically use less power but
also do less work per unit time.

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cm2187
I was under the impression that i3 were the weaker dies, where for any reason
there were some defect on some part if the cache they would disable it and
sell it as i3. I don't know if this is true or not, but in any case is there
anything to read in the fact that i3 would be released before i5 and i7?

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samuell
Easier to produce lots of i3s because of high failure rate?

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cm2187
That was my thinking given the yield problems they had with this process but I
am not qualified.

