Intel officially announces Lakefield SKUs based on Foveros, pits them against Amber Lake-Y

After an initial preview at CES 2019, Intel has been relatively quiet about the Foveros-based Lakefield processors officially called Core processors with Intel Hybrid Technology. Apart from a few leaked benchmarks, not much was known about the processors themselves. Today, Intel is officially announcing the arrival of Lakefield Hybrid processors. 

Intel already had detailed about the Foveros 3D packaging technology last year. Essentially, Foveros allows a mix and match of various memory and I/O components into what is called a Compute Chiplet that includes the CPU, GPU, LPDDR4x memory controller, the DRAM itself, 1.5 MB L2 cache, 0.5 MB medium level cache, and a 4 MB L3 cache. 

The CPU cores are comprised of a big 10nm Sunny Cove core for intensive workloads and four smaller 10nm Tremont cores for power efficiency with the Windows scheduler deciding the load allocation to the cores. Intel is pegging the Lakefield chips as an alternative to Y-series processors such as Amber Lake-Y. Intel claims up to 12% faster performance in single-threaded integer compute loads (when the Core i5-L16G7 is compared to an Core i7-8500Y). Intel says Lakefield SoCs consume just about 2.5 mW of power in standby — 91% lesser than the Core i7-8500Y. These processors also feature dual internal display pipes making them an ideal choice for foldable and dual-screen PCs.

The Lakefield family is comprised of two SKUs: the Core i3-L13G4 and the Core i5-L16G7. While we have also seen the Core i5-L15G7 in leaked benchmarks, Intel has not detailed it in today's launch. It could be very well possible that the Core i5-L15G7 was just a prototype sample.