Intel Core Ultra 7 268V Processor Leaked: Single-Core Performance Boost

Samsung Electro-Mechanics and LG Innotek are accelerating their efforts in the AI semiconductor substrate business. Recently, Samsung's Vietnam Flip Chip Ball Grid Array (FC-BGA) plant has commenced operations. Both companies aim to gain a competitive edge in the semiconductor substrate market, which is currently dominated by Taiwan and Japan.

According to industry insiders, Samsung's production plant in Vietnam has started mass-producing FC-BGA products. This project has seen an investment of over 1 trillion KRW (approximately $74.1 million USD) since 2021. These substrates are expected to be used in AI-equipped laptops, tablets, smartphones, and potentially expand to servers, networks, and automotive electronics.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics plans to begin mass production of AI-specific FC-BGA substrates in the second half of this year. Choi Duk-hyun, President of Samsung Electro-Mechanics, stated in March, "We plan to start mass production of AI-use FC-BGA in the second half of this year and are in discussions with various customers. By diversifying applications and expanding our customer base, we aim to more than double our AI-related sales annually."

LG Innotek began mass production of FC-BGA at its Gumi plant this February, primarily for IT applications. Under the leadership of CEO Moon Hyuk-soo, the company has reported ongoing quality testing with customers and anticipates a rise in sales as early as August or as late as October.

FC-BGA is a highly integrated packaging substrate used to connect semiconductor chips to the mainboard, mainly for high-performance computing (HPC). With the development of big data and machine learning, the FC-BGA market is also expected to expand. According to Fujikam Integrated Research Institute, the global FC-BGA market is projected to grow from $8 billion in 2022 to $16.4 billion by 2030.

Currently, Japanese companies such as IBIDEN and Shin-Etsu Chemical, along with Taiwan's Unimicron, dominate the substrate market. In 2022, Japanese and Taiwanese companies held a 69% market share, while Korean companies accounted for approximately 10%.Recently, benchmark scores for Intel's yet-to-be-released Lunar Lake series Core Ultra 7 processor, model Ultra 7 268V, were leaked. According to the Geekbench benchmarking platform, this processor features 4 non-hyper-threaded P performance cores and 4 E efficiency cores.

Designed specifically for thin and compact laptops, this CPU emphasizes energy efficiency. In terms of benchmark scores, the Ultra 7 268V achieved a single-core score of 2713 and a multi-core score of 10036; another result showed single-core and multi-core scores of 2739 and 9907, respectively. Compared to its predecessor, the single-core score has improved, while the multi-core score has decreased.

In comparison, the Meteor Lake series Core Ultra 7 155H processor scored 2356 in single-core and 11926 in multi-core tests.

Intel’s upcoming next-generation Lunar Lake processors will feature upgraded E cores based on the Skymont architecture, boasting up to a 68% IPC improvement over the Crestmont LPE cores in Meteor Lake.

Moreover, one of the significant changes Intel has made in Lunar Lake is the removal of hyper-threading technology in some processors to enhance energy efficiency.