More Details On Intel Skylake Revealed: 14nm, DDR4, Low TDPs

Intel is supposed to be launching their Skylake platform at some stage in 2015. Skylake will succeed Broadwell and it will be a “tock” in the Intel Tick-Tock model as it maintains the same 14nm process node but opts for a new microarchitecture. Skylake will bring DDR4 memory support and an improved graphics processing unit. There will be four variations of Skylake: U and Y series CPUs for ultra low power devices such as tablets and ultrabooks. H series CPUs for high performance mobile and all-in-one form factors and finally the S series which is for traditional socketed desktop CPUs.

Intel’s U and Y series CPUs will integrate the PCH on-die, so are effectively SoCs, Intel’s H and S series CPUs will require an external PCH, or chipset. The H and S series CPUs now communicate with the PCH over DMI 3.0, instead of the current DMI 2.0, and they will be dual channel CPUs. The U and Y series CPUs will be single channel. In terms of core counts the U and Y CPUs will have 2 cores and support LPDDR3 memory  up to 1600MHz. The Y parts have GT2 graphics with a 4W TDP and the U parts GT2 graphics with a 15W TDP. There will also be “special” versions of the U series CPUs that come with 64MB of eDRAM and better GT3 graphics, these have 15 and 28W TDPs.

Moving onto the all-important H and S series parts now, the H series CPUs will have 4 cores with GT2 or GT4e graphics. The GT2 parts have 35 and 45W TDPs while the GT4e parts have 45W TDPs and 128MB of eDRAM cache. Unlike the U and Y series parts the H series parts have full support for DDR4 memory up to 2133MHz. The S parts, which are the desktop socketed CPUs, are offered in dual and quad core models as expected. The dual core models come with GT2 graphics and in 35 or 65W parts. The quad core models come with GT2 or GT4e graphics, except they get 64MB not 128MB of eDRAM.The TDP for these parts will be 35W and 65W but there will also be some 95W TDP parts with GT2 graphics. Presumably these will be the high-end enthusiast skews because there is no reason to give them anything other than basic entry-level GT2 graphics as most people will not use them. These S series parts will support DDR4 2133 but some of them will also support DDR3L and DDR3L-RS to allow for compact and SFF systems to be built.

The H, U and Y series CPUs will all be produced in soldered BGA packages – some are rumoured to have configurable TDPs. The S series CPUs come in the LGA 1151 package and are socketed.

Source: CPU-World

Image courtesy of VR-Zone