Intel Meteor Lake GPU tile rumored to utilize TSMC 3nm process technology

Intel allegedly orders TSMC to build Meteor Lake GPU tiles

According to Commercial Times, who are citing their own industry sources, Intel 14th Gen Core CPU series codenamed “Meteor Lake” is to use TSMC 3nm process technology for the graphics tile.

Intel Meteor Lake will be a consumer processor series featuring a novel packaging technology called Foveros (first used by low-power Lakefield CPU series). By using an advanced multi-tile packaging design it will also follow data center products such as Ponte Vecchio and Sapphire Rapids featuring EMIB (Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge), which are to debut next year. Intel is clearly paving its way out of the monolithic designs.

Just recently we got a chance to see one of the first Meteor Lake test wafers and silicons for next-gen mobile products as they were exclusively photographed by Cnet. The biggest tile might be the said GPU tile:

Intel Meteor Lake test silicon, Source: CNET

Intel’s 2023 product Meteor Lake GPU is now rumored to be using Xe-LP Gen12.7 graphics architecture, which is a newer version compared to Alder Lake and Raptor Lake. Intel already confirmed that Meteor Lake products will feature up to 192 Execution Units, more than doubling the count over existing and upcoming Alder/Raptor Lake processors. A GPU core count bump and newer architecture will not be the only advantages over the existing Gen12.2 GPU series though, as the GPU is also rumored to use a smaller process node.

Contrary to previous rumors though, the graphics tile might not be using TSMC N5 process technology, but 3nm process instead, claims Ctee. The processor would therefore utilize as many as three different nodes: Intel 4 for compute tile, TSMC N5 or N4 for SoC-LP (I/O) tile, and TSMC N3 for the GPU tile.

Intel Meteor Lake process technology, Source: Ctee

Intel had already announced it will commission TSMC to produce Xe-HPG (Arc Alchemist) GPU tiles using N6 process technology. Both companies have also been working together in bringing the Ponte Vecchio data center accelerator to the market. The GPU features TSMC N7 node for Xe-Link and TSMC N5 for its compute tile.

According to the latest rumors, Meteor Lake CPUs is to debut in the second quarter of 2023. It will feature a second-generation hybrid architecture with Redwood Cove (big) and Crestmont (small/Atom) cores. The exact configuration of the CPU cores is yet unknown.

Source: Ctee via Dan Nystedt