Intel's new processor ignites the AI PC war

Intel's new processor, the Meteor Lake, will be launched on December 14th, with high expectations from the technology industry, which is expected to cause a wave of AI PC upgrades. It is understood that ODM foundries and brand operators have prioritized the introduction of high-end commercial models and are aiming to showcase them at CES in early January next year. The operators point out that the new architecture of CPUs will also drive the upgrading of peripheral components in the supply chain. In addition to TSMC and ASE, DDR5 Nanya and ARGOSY, PCIe Gen5 Paradise and Asmedia, as well as Xinxing, which has increased the number of carrier layers, are expected to benefit.

The AI era has officially arrived, and Intel is planning a new architecture for the Core Ultra processor (codenamed Meteor Lake). This CPU is also Intel's first processor equipped with an NPU, with the goal of achieving efficient AI acceleration and edge inference applications on PCs; The Meteor Lake adopts a Tile (chip block) architecture, similar to AMD's Chiplet (small chip) approach, which achieves high-density, high-energy efficiency, and low latency processors by serially connecting multiple process chip blocks.

Currently, only Compute Tiles use Intel's own Intel 4 process; Graphics Tile (GPU unit) and SoC Tile (system chip block) use TSMC N5 and N6 advanced processes respectively, with TSMC and ASE benefiting first.

In addition, AI PCs will also drive the upgrading of specifications corresponding to peripheral components. In terms of storage chips, the mainstream PC memory still uses DDR4 4Gb/8Gb. With the exponential growth of AI language model parameters, Meteor Lake fully supports DDR5 with higher capacity and faster speed, which helps to continuously improve DDR5 penetration rate. Nanya, a Taiwanese manufacturer, actively enters the market, while ARGOSY has a great opportunity for internal memory connectors.

Various AI applications are flourishing, and Meteor Lake fully supports PCIe Gen5, and the demand for high-speed transmission will also grow. In terms of carrier board, although the overall area of the carrier board is comparable to the previous two generations of PC processors, due to the use of Intel 3D Foveros advanced packaging technology, four Tiles will be integrated on the same wafer substrate, and the number of carrier board layers is expected to increase from 10 to 12. Intel's carrier board partners Xinxing and Jianding are also expected to benefit from this growth.